Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies: The French and British Experience, 1945-1975 9781400869053

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Tables
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Labor Migration and the Colonial Legacy
3 The Evolution of Immigration Policy Since World War II
4 Elites, Consensus, and the Depoliticization of Race
5 Immigration, Race Relations, and Welfare
6 The Economic Context of Immigration Policy
7 The Dilemma of Organized Labor and the Left
8 Racism, Nationalism, and the Mass Public
9 Conclusion
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies

Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies The French and British Experience 1945-1975

GARY P. FREEMAN

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Princeton, New Jersey

Copyright © 1979 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This book has been composed in linotype Times Roman Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

TO

Bonnie

Contents

List of Tables

ix

Preface

xi

1

Introduction

3

2

Labor Migration and the Colonial Legacy

20

3

The Evolution of Immigration Policy since World War II

43

4

Elites, Consensus, and the Depoliticization of Race

99

5

Immigration, Race Relations, and Welfare

131

6

The Economic Context of Immigration Policy

173

7

The Dilemma of Organized Labor and the Left

216

8

Racism, Nationalism, and the Mass Public

259

9

Conclusion

308

Works Cited

330

Index

349

List of Tables

1. 2.

Immigration to France, 1946-1972 Number of Immigrants in France, by Country of Origin 3. Estimated Net Inward Movement of West Indians, Indians, and Pakistanis, 1955-30 June 1962 4. Ministry of Labour Voucher Holders Admitted 1 July 1962 to December 1972 5. Dependents Admitted 1 July 1962 to December 1972 6. Entry of West Indians, Indians, and Pakistanis under Immigration Act 1971 7. Qualification Level of National and Foreign Work Force, Britain and France 8. Economic Activity of Males in Employment, Selected Birthplace Groups, Britain, 1966 9. Proportion of Labor Force that Is Foreign, Selected Industries, France 10. Per Cent of Immigrants Regularized, 1948-1970 11. Attitudes toward a Significant Increase in the Number of Foreign Workers, France 12. French Attitudes toward the Utility of Foreign Labor 13. French Attitudes toward Particular Nationality Groups 14. Per Cent Who Think Adaptation to French Life Will be "Easy" for Certain Nationality Groups

22 23

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 78 266 267 272 273

Preface

WRITING on contemporary politics is an exceedingly risky venture. Even the most prescient scholar is likely to see events overtake his prognostications and render his analysis moot before his words have gone to press. Whether this has been the case with the present work, the reader must judge. On one point I am certain: the presence of foreign workers and racial minorities in the countries of Western Europe is more than ever a cause of conflict and confusion. In France, the government has been reduced to paying foreigners bo­ nuses to go back home. In Britain, there has been a racially motivated surge of interest in frankly fascist politics not seen since the thirties. Something else is clear as well, however. Immigration has not become the most important political issue. Even in Switzerland, where voters were twice given the opportunity to instruct their government to repatriate sizable segments of their foreign populations and twice refused, immigration is but one of a number of interconnected dilemmas which test the will and ingenuity of political elites in every ad­ vanced, capitalist society. It is the salience of the immigration issue and its relation­ ship to more general problems which recommend it for care­ ful analysis. If I have at all achieved my purpose, this book both delivers less than it promises and is more than it ap­ pears. In attempting to survey events in two countries over a thirty year period, I necessarily have glossed over countless subtleties and particularities, which informed readers and participants in the activities described will no doubt find troubling. In my defense, I can say that I have not deliber­ ately distorted reality or attempted to force the evidence into preconceived molds. On the contrary, many of the conclu­ sions in the final chapter would have been genuinely surpris­ ing to me as I launched this project. The exploitation and

PREFACE

mistreatment of immigrants, the anxieties of indigenous workers who watch their neighborhoods and way of life being transformed, the careful calculations and daring gambles of politicians, planners, and statesmen—these are subjects in themselves worthy of analysis. But if this volume avoids the narrowness of a simple case study, as I hope it does, it is be­ cause the chronicle of immigration and race policy in France and Britain reveals facets of the general decision-making capability of these political systems. I have tried throughout the study, but especially in the final chapter, to draw these out. During the months and years that I have lived with this project, it has often been necessary to turn to others for support and assistance. I hope that they will take these brief remarks as an expression of my gratitude. At the risk of scaring away potential readers, I will confess that this book began as a doctoral dissertation. Consequently, more than the usual scholarly production it owes a large debt to the wisdom and guidance of persons other than the author. Leon Epstein was more than a thesis director—through word and deed he provided a remarkable model of the scholarteacher to which I can only aspire. Charles Anderson will understand his contribution—we had, I believe, a rare if largely unspoken meeting of the minds about what was im­ portant. James Scott consistently posted in the mails trench­ ant reviews of each new chapter as he received them. All three provided the initial direction which my inchoate and undeveloped ideas required and lent delicate and helpful criticism along the way. Booth Fowler imparted to me and to a generation of students at Wisconsin an enduring love of normative political theory, and Murray Edelman initiated me into the netherworld of political symbols and mythology. A number of individuals have read parts or all of the manuscript. Matthew Holden, Jr., participated in the formu­ lation of the problem and offered early encouragement. Thomas Bossert and Wilton E. Mason III made their way through the original drafts, something only good friends will

PREFACE

do. Patricia Giles Leeds, Mary Katzenstein, Peter Katzenstein, Carol O'Day, and Nathan Schwartz read individual chapters and made more suggestions than could be absorbed, unfortunately. Bernard Hennessy, Ira Katznelson, and Aristide Zolberg all read the entire manuscript, in some cases more than one version of it. This is a much improved book because of their efforts. Nevertheless, it is necessary for me to absolve them from any responsibility for what remain of my original errors. I want especially to acknowledge Lawrence Dodd who has not only put his considerable intellectual abilities at my dis­ posal, but has made me reconsider my skepticism about the possibility of real collegiality in the university. Thomas Oleszczuk and Jo Sotheran offered vital assistance at several stages of the work. Finally, Sanford Thatcher has been a remarkably helpful and supportive editor. In the course of the field work which I conducted in 1974, I spent a number of months during the bitter London winter shivering in the unheated library of the Institute of Race Re­ lations. Even though the Institute was undergoing basic changes, was in desperate financial straits, and was increas­ ingly hostile to academic research, I was allowed to take ad­ vantage of their collections, which are still unexcelled. The reader of footnotes will readily grasp the importance of those documents to this study. The experience was in itself an education in British race relations and intensified my con­ cern with the problem of integrating theory and practice. David Stephen of the Runnymede Trust, London, was very generous with his time and extensive knowledge of the British racial scene. In Paris, Louise Scott and Gary Schubert fa­ cilitated the research in a variety of ways. This project has been supported by several institutions. During the time that the field work was undertaken, I was a Danforth Graduate Fellow. The University of Wisconsin Graduate School awarded a travel grant, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Post-industrial Society at the Uni­ versity of Wisconsin provided supplemental funds to make

PREFACE

the trip abroad possible. Finally, the University Research In­ stitute of the University of Texas furnished the means for the preparation of the final manuscript. Ginny Mittnacht and Mary Lovejoy typed those parts of the manuscript which I could not manage myself. Unless otherwise noted all trans­ lations from the French are mine.

Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

SINCE the end of World War II there has been a continuing

stream of workers pouring into the industrial centers of the West to man the factories and to take up the more menial tasks abandoned by European workers. These new migrants have come successively from those Eastern European coun­ tries subjected to Soviet influence, from the nations on the periphery of Europe that have lagged behind in the race to industrialize, and from the more distant and underdeveloped nations of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the West Indies. This study is devoted to an examination of the way in which the governments of Britain and France sought to ignore, stimulate, exploit, curtail, regulate, and otherwise respond to immigration and the racial conflict which ensued. IMMIGRANT LABOR IN ADVANCED CAPITALISM

Immigrant labor has come to be a critical ingredient in the health of the economies of the advanced industrial West. In the aftermath of the Second World War, foreign workers provided the hands that were essential to ensure the recovery of European economies. As the years passed, migrant labor became not merely a temporary convenience or necessity, but a structural requirement of advanced capitalism. It was not simply that in the absence of foreigners work would be left undone and vacancies unfilled. Immigration also helped dampen inflation, reduce wage pressure, relieve Europeans of the necessity of performing undesirable work tasks, and in general defuse class conflict. Even in recessionary periods, European economies could scarcely afford to divest them­ selves of significant portions of their alien work force. Ex­ actly why migrant labor has become a more or less per-

INTRODUCTION

manent feature of capitalist systems is a matter of some dispute which will be considered in due course. That it has become so is generally conceded.1 The governments of Western Europe have seemed to realize fully their dependence on foreign labor at the very moment they discovered the considerable disadvantages at­ tached to its use. These were largely social at first, but as time passed they became monetary as well. The structural dependence of economies on migrant workers becomes a dangerous condition if, for whatever reasons, migrants are not freely available. This situation may occur either because reservoirs of potential migrants begin to dry up or domestic political pressures prevent easy recourse to them. The latter is a distinct possibility because labor migration as it is known in Europe involves introducing racially and culturally mixed populations into societies which were formerly relatively homogeneous. This has everywhere resulted in interracial tension and in some places open violence. The maintenance of racial peace is essential, if for no other reason than with­ out it the use of foreign workers will need to be seriously curtailed. Migrant workers are profitable and beneficial to the host society only so long as they are unorganized, insecure, bereft of political rights, in a word, "exploited." Migrants consti­ tute an industrial reserve army and it is characteristic of such an army that its members be highly mobile, dispensable, and poorly compensated.2 If any or most of these traits are removed, the attraction of immigration to the industrialist or planner is markedly reduced. Despite governmental indif­ ference to the social deprivation of immigrants and heavyhanded attempts to snuff out incipient trade union or political organization among them, it has proved impossible to avoid at least some concessions to immigrant welfare and political 1 Manuel Castells, "Immigrant Workers and Class Struggles," pp. 33-66; Charles Kindleberger, Europe's Post-War Growth. 2 This argument will be developed more fully in ch. 6. See Antony Ward, "European Capitalism's Reserve Army"; and Kindleberger.

INTRODUCTION

status. Either the development of a political consciousness among migrants or their integration into national workingclass organizations spells the end of many of the benefits of alien labor. The story of contemporary immigration policy in Western Europe is that of a steady, if not always conscious, effort on the part of governments to resolve the tensions inherent in the uses and costs of migrant labor. As such, immigration is a compelling case study of the more general attempts of liberal democratic governments to deal with the mounting problems which they face. CRISIS, CHANGE, AND PUBLIC POLICY

There is a growing consensus that the societies of the capitalist West are in a period of crisis which has the po­ tential to transform their governments fundamentally. Ob­ servers from both the left and right increasingly agree that something is seriously awry in these polities. Surely few would any longer publicly entertain the sunny observations of eminent social scientists who only a few years ago con­ cluded that the basic problems of capitalism had been re­ solved by the juxtaposition of economic plenty, welfare state benevolence, and mass political apathy.3 In the most fully developed framework for the study of the crisis tendencies of late capitalism, Jurgen Habermas illustrates the range of problems with which governments must wrestle. He identi­ fies four major elements of the general malaise of capitalist political systems: crises of the economy, of the motivational system, of rationality, and of legitimacy.4 For a while it had seemed that the governments of the West had discovered the means to manage their economic affairs skillfully and successfully. The introduction of Keynesian macroeconomic techniques, the development of plan3 See Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man; Bernard Berelson et al., Voting. 4 Legitimation Crisis.

INTRODUCTION

ning on the French model, the willingness of both labor and management to compromise for the good of the productive system as a whole—each of these had contributed to steady growth and unparalleled prosperity in the thirty years since the war. If there were still problems, most seemed to think, they were the result of failures of will, not the absence of the intellectual tools with which progress could be assured.5 The dramatic reverses which European and American eco­ nomic fortunes have suffered in recent months, the dogged persistence of inflation in the company of recession and high unemployment, have sent many theorists back to the drawing boards. A series of stop-gap measures and miracle cures have been prescribed, but none has promised to restore the con­ fidence of decision makers in their ability to tame the mar­ ket.6 The increasing intractability of economic problems has been accompanied by a striking upsurge in the scope and in­ tensity of demands being placed on the political system. Stu­ dents and governments talk more and more of the expecta­ tions of citizens outrunning the ability of governments to meet them. "Demand overload" has been added to the vo­ cabulary of policy analysis and there is concern that the po­ litical system might actually be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the requests made of it. Some see this as the out­ come of the unbridled appetites of the mass public. Speaking of the development in the United States of a "democratic distemper," Samuel Huntington concludes that it is an excess of democracy that has led citizens to expect too much from their governments. He warns that "the vulnerability of demo­ cratic government in the United States thus comes from . . . the internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly edu­ cated, mobilized, and participant society."7 Writing in a 5 Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism; Michael Stewart, Keynes and After. 6 Aubrey Jones, New Inflation. 7 In Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, Crisis of Democracy, p. 115. On the general problem see Anthony King, "Overload."

INTRODUCTION

similar vein about the United Kingdom, Samuel Brittan gloomily concludes that "liberal democracy suffers from in­ ternal contradictions, which are likely to increase in time, and that, on present indications, the system is likely to pass away within the life time of people now adult."8 Marxists, on the other hand, interpret the inability of governments to fulfill their citizens' expectations as the logi­ cal outgrowth of the contradictions of advanced capitalism. The most significant manifestation of these contradictions is a permanent fiscal crisis. James O'Connor defines the fiscal crisis as the "structural gap . . . between state expenditures and state revenues"9 and explains its appearance as the consequence of the contradiction between the tendency of governments in capitalist societies to take on more and more of the costs of production but to allow the private appropria­ tion of the profits of the system. In O'Connor's scheme, the government is not simply at the mercy of an overindulgent mass public, but rather is bending under the weight of a complex and interlocking set of spontaneous and induced demands from both mass and elite sectors. Difficult as these problems are, governments might have hoped to stumble along, reacting to each new challenge in an ad hoc fashion, buying time until some more comprehen­ sive plan could be developed or until some technological fix burst on the scene.10 But this is impossible because the citi­ zens of the Western democracies are in no mood to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. There is abundant evidence that there has been a remarkable decline in the trust and faith the av­ erage man and woman have in their government. That is, the legitimacy which politicians have in the past been able to fall back on in times of trouble has begun to evaporate. This seems to be the outcome of several concurrent trends. 8

"Economic Contradictions of Democracy," p. 9. Fiscal Crisis of the State, p. 9. See also Ian Gough, "State Ex­ penditure in Advanced Capitalism," pp. 53-92. 10 On the possibility of the latter solution consult Donella H. Meadows and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth', Mihajlo Mesarovic and Edward Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point. 9

INTRODUCTION

Writing about the United States, Huntington stresses the role of the "basic American value system and the degree of com­ mitment which groups in society feel toward that value system." He describes the decline of governmental authority in the late sixties as part of a "creedal passion period" which, he believes, occurs in cyclical fashion in this country.11 Habermas, in contrast, focuses on the basic dilemma of justify­ ing policies in universalistic terms when they are increasingly seen to benefit identifiable private interests.12 He goes on to point out that as the interventionist state moves into areas which were formerly part of the private sphere it demystifies these areas and makes the noninevitability of particular policy choices more apparent. It is hardly surprising that these developments have re­ sulted in a "rationality crisis" in which governments exhibit a profound inability to accomplish their goals, to take de­ cisive action, to solve basic problems. Nevertheless, this is more than a little ironic, as Bertram Gross has noted: Thus, at the very time when there is more sophisticated, long-range, resource-backed planning than ever before in human history, there appears to be a widely prevalent and growing sense of drift, disorder, and breakdown of societal guidance.13 The remedy one is likely to offer for this problem depends, of course, on his explanation for it. Some critics have con­ cluded that we have reached the limits of man's ability to cope with complexity and interdependence in the social world. They argue that to proceed along present lines is like­ ly to exacerbate rather than reduce our difficulties. They 11 Huntington, p. 112. On the decline of trust in the United States see the following papers: Jack Dennis, "Trends in Public Support for the American Political Party System"; Dennis, "Dimensions of Pub­ lic Support for the Presidency"; Arthur H. Miller, "Change in Po­ litical Trust." 12 Habermas, p. 69. Cf. Brittan, for a non-Marxist argument which is very similar. 13 "Planning in an Era of Social Revolution," p. 283.

INTRODUCTION

counsel pulling back, reducing expectations, and settling for a less than perfect world. Others largely agree but believe that there is evidence of the impending collapse of the system as we know it and that simply "lowering one's voice" will not in the end be of much use. They are concerned, there­ fore, either with finding measures which can shore up the shaky edifice of Western, liberal democracy or with discov­ ering the critical levers which will be able to move this sys­ tem along the most congenial path toward the postindustrial future. Immigration has been relevant to each of the crises Habermas outlines. Migrant workers have seemed to some de­ cision makers, at least, to be an appealing means of over­ coming labor shortage and inflation without generating po­ litically unacceptable unemployment. Migrant workers, both because of the wealth they create and because they take over the least pleasant tasks of an industrial society, have abetted Europeans in their quest for higher and higher living standards. To'the extent that these material advances were accompanied with insufficient awareness of their tenuous character and their dependence on the presence of foreigners, migration has exacerbated the motivation crisis in the West. Although chapter 4 will argue that government handling of immigration has intensified legitimation problems, at least in Britain, it has certainly been intended as a means of in­ creasing the legitimacy of regimes by reducing the economic hardships of indigenous workers and by providing a target for working-class resentment within the working class itself. Finally, as the pages which follow will document, govern­ mental responses to migration—harnessing it to labor market requirements, dealing with the social and cultural fallout in its wake—have amply illustrated the great difficulty of fash­ ioning a working policy with respect to a complex and inter­ dependent set of problems. The immigrant labor-race issue is a compelling subject for the student of elite adaptation and crisis management. In its present form, the migrant worker problem is almost

INTRODUCTION

entirely a post-World War II phenomenon. As such it al­ lows researchers to trace the reaction of decision makers to new and perplexing challenges. Moreover, immigration and racial turmoil are more than "policy problems" or dilemmas for weary and overtaxed politicians. In a real sense they represent potent tools for the avoidance of crisis and the amelioration of other, more pressing, troubles. This dual quality of labor migration which makes it both a cause of and an answer to the crises of advanced societies makes a simple, straightforward analysis of policy impossible and ex­ plains, perhaps, the fumbling manner in which it has been handled by British and French officials. It seems reasonable that it is with respect to emerging issues that decision makers have the greatest impact. They can play a major role in shap­ ing the form and subsequent development of problems which have not been rigidly institutionalized.14 Before moving to a detailed description of the subject of this study, it is neces­ sary to lay out a framework for the analysis of elite behavior and attitudes. ELITES AND PUBLIC POLICY

The intensity of the renewed interest among political scien­ tists in public policy is matched by the heterogeneity of ap­ proaches to its analysis. Especially for those in the field of comparative politics, the imperative to transcend the limits of the traditional case study has led to a flowering of multi­ national aggregate studies based on the quantification of a relatively few variables. Although we do not have so many good case studies that we can ignore that avenue of research, and though the potential of aggregate analysis is grand, but unrealized, there is still room for a middle-range approach at this juncture. Such an approach would attempt to strike a balance between the thin but ambitious work of aggregate 14 For a forceful and stimulating discussion along these lines, see Leon Lindberg, "Strategies and Priorities for Comparative Research," pp. 222-286.

INTRODUCTION

data analyses and the contextually rich, but generalization poor, configurational studies.15 What I propose is for the most part neither new nor un­ conventional, but in one respect it does go against the grain of much work in policy analysis and, indeed, behavioral po­ litical science. It does so by taking political actors seriously as policy makers, by focusing not only on their behavior, but on their motives, values, and perceptions. There is a tendency in recent work to treat political actors as objects, tugged to and fro by "forces" in their environments which are thought to explain their behavior.16 There is a reluctance to take any­ thing policy-making elites say at face value, or even as in­ formative, certainly not as the reason for their actions. This is an error, I think, because it obscures the degree to which elites do make choices which affect the course of political development. It also causes us to forget that the language and arguments which policy makers use can be a fruitful source of data on their information, perceptions, and values. If, as the previous section has suggested, contemporary capitalist societies are in transitional phases in which the paradigms that policy makers employ are no longer adequate to handle the challenges they face, an inquiry into the con­ tent of those paradigms and the manner in which they evolve or fail to evolve is critical. One approach to the elucidation of elite perceptions which shows great promise is the careful analysis of individual ac­ tors through interviews. Putnam's ground-breaking work on elite ideology and Axelrod's contribution to the mapping of elite attitude structures are among the best efforts using these techniques.17 It is not clear, however, that this is the most compelling approach for persons interested primarily in pub15 A useful review of the field is Richard Rose, "Comparing Pub­ lic Policy," pp. 67-94. 16 A good critique of this approach may be found in Charles W. Anderson, "System and Strategy in Comparative Policy Analysis," pp. 233-238. 17 See Robert Putnam, "Studying Elite Political Culture," pp. 651681; Robert Axelrod, ed., The Structure of Decision.

INTRODUCTION

lie policy rather than individual, or even group, behavior. At least, it seems reasonable to me to embark on the study of a relatively new and unexplored arena in the field of com­ parative policy analysis in rather broad terms. Instead of at­ tempting to probe in detail the motivations, values, and biases of individual policy makers through in-depth inter­ views, on or off the record, I wish to describe and analyze the conversation among elites which has taken place in pub­ lic over the immigrant/race problem. In doing this, I carry out the analysis at two levels. On the first level, the study is a comparison of the policy record of two countries in dealing with more or less similar phenomena. The data for this part of the research consist, primarily, of the actions or inactions of individuals and insti­ tutions, as well as the outcomes of their behavior. This is rather traditional historical analysis, utilizing familiar casestudy techniques developed in prebehavioral political sci­ ence.18 At a second level, however, I am attempting to map out, in very general terms, the different schools of thought, or points of view, which have developed over the immigration question.19 These perspectives do not refer to the attitudes of any particular individuals, but to more or less recogniza­ ble groups of individuals taking part in the public debate. It is my assumption that the drift of policy can be interpreted as the outcome of the meshing and contention of these per­ spectives. That is, that policy is the result, not only of power struggles or environmental constraints, but of argument, re­ flection, and persuasion.20 18 On the use of the case study approach in comparative politics, see Arend Lijphart, "Comparative Politics and Comparative Method," p. 116. 19 For an elaboration of the approach used here, see Geoffrey Vickers, Art of Judgment, p. 67. See also his Freedom in a Rocking Boat. 20 There is a growing body of work which approaches policy from this point of view. See Charles W. Anderson, "Comparative Policy Analysis," pp. 117-131.

INTRODUCTION

I seek to answer the following questions: How did the perspectives of decision makers equip them to respond to the immigration and race phenomenon? How did they lead them to define it as a problem and to develop responses which seemed appropriate and workable? Was the issue one which elites could comfortably handle, given their operating as­ sumptions? Did their understanding of the problem and its possible solutions change over time, for better or worse? The data at this level of analysis are drawn from the pub­ lic statements of decision makers, parliamentary debates, and other published materials. They are also partly derived from inferences based on observable behavior. Were my purpose the detailed description and analysis of the cognitive maps of individual decision makers, or were decision makers the primary unit of analysis, these documentary sources would be inadequate. They are, I think, suitable, given the emphasis this study will place on the public debate on immigration and race. My focus is on the process by which political and social phenomena become defined as public problems and how alternative responses to these problems are generated and selected by collective bodies. Public statements of inten­ tions and motives may, of course, be rationalizations of pri­ vate desires. It is not clear that even skillfully conducted in­ terviews would allow one to avoid this difficulty—the inter­ view situation is itself a public forum. But what does seem clear is that once uttered, public statements become part of the political process, become an element in the constantly growing stream of events, truths, fears, lies, and crises which make up the policy process. As such, they must be taken into account.21 The adequacy of the data base, as well as 21 There is, of course, a serious difficulty in interpreting the public statements of political figures. One does not wish to be less sophisti­ cated than Marx's shopkeeper. Nevertheless, it seems to me foolish to discount all public argument as meaningless or deceptive, willfully or otherwise. It is difficult to believe that all discussions over policy are conducted in elaborate code such that when actors justify their behavior in terms of X considerations they really mean Y. Further­ more, we are not helpless in the face of the comments of public of-

INTRODUCTION

the general emphasis on political argument and learning, must be assessed in terms of its ability to explain plausibly developments in the two countries. A concept which draws together an appreciation of both the role of actors' cognitive frameworks and the essen­ tially public and collective character of policy making is that of social learning. Shon argues that government as a learning system carries with it the idea of public learning, a special way of acquiring new ca­ pacity for behavior in which government learns for the society as a whole. In public learning, government under­ takes a continuing, directed inquiry into the nature, causes and resolutions of our problems.22 One need not accept the assumption which seems to be implied by Shon that governments usually try to solve prob­ lems for the good of the society as a whole to grasp the fact that learning or failing to learn is crucial either for the per­ petuation of the status quo or for its conscious transforma­ tion. This study traces the efforts of decision makers and elites, in the government and out, to learn about race and immigration, to adjust their expectations and beliefs to new realities, to react in ways designed to realize their goals in this and other policy arenas. The purpose of this analysis is to describe how elites in two political systems have grappled with immigration, race, and related issues over a thirty-year period. Such a historical, comparative analysis is designed to elucidate the means by which governments define problems, react to uncertainty, adapt to obvious failures, modify intellectual paradigms, and interact with parties, interest groups, and the public. This study should provide a standpoint from which to evaluate ficials—their statements may be set against their behavior or against the "facts" as best we can determine them. For a brief discussion of how to overcome the "sociology of knowledge problem," see Alvin W. Boskoff, Theory in American Sociology, pp. 310-337. 22 Donald A. Shon, Beyond the Stable State, p. 116.

INTRODUCTION

the more general problem-solving capability of the political systems under consideration. Since one of my guiding assumptions is that the future of advanced industrial societies is by no means certain and, in fact, can take any one of several drastically different paths, the attempts of counterelites to amend or supplant the defini­ tions and assumptions of those in power also merit careful examination. In one sense, the ability to take into account or to suppress these creative alternatives may be crucial to the survival of dominant elites.23 THE PROBLEM

In choosing France and Britain as the setting for this analysis, I am following the method of comparing less di­ vergent societies rather than highly divergent ones. The pre­ sumption of this approach is that comparisons of societies which have many similar characteristics—culture, institu­ tions, history—benefit from the fact that "a number of factors are in effect 'controlled' and disregarded for the purposes of explaining differences among these societies."24 Great Britain and France do share a variety of character­ istics that recommend them as the subjects of this analysis. First, both are highly developed, advanced industrial societies with mixed-capitalist economic systems. Second, both coun­ tries are ex-colonial powers and, as we shall see, the con­ temporary issues of race and immigration are rooted in the colonial experience. Third, both societies have Westernstyle, democratic political systems based on elections and relatively free competition among political parties. Perhaps most important, in both countries the issues of race and immi­ gration have been major components of recent political life and they provide an opportunity to see how two similar sys­ tems have responded to them. Nevertheless, immigration to these countries has by no means been identical in size, rate, 23 24

Lindberg, pp. 252-254; 278-279. Lijpbart, p. 687.

INTRODUCTION

or composition. Before I can proceed to the analysis of the governmental response, it is necessary to specify as precisely as possible what the subject for study is. On the whole, I am concerned with the movement of nonEuropean, nonwhite workers and their dependents into Brit­ ain and France. In Britain the identification of the target group is relatively simple. It is composed of Commonwealth immigrants, a term used in that country exclusively if illogically to refer to nonwhites. These immigrants have journeyed to Britain primarily from India, Pakistan, and the West Indies, with smaller numbers from East Africa, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and an assortment of other countries. My topic is not immigration to Britain, per se, since a sizable influx of Irish and a less important increment of EEC workers and other Europeans will be mentioned only in passing. The delineation of the object of study in France is more difficult, at least in part because decision makers there avoided until recently compartmentalizing migration policy toward non-Europeans from their more general immigration program. The topic of interest in France, then, is migrant workers, but predominant emphasis will be on those whose origins are outside Europe. These include individuals coming from the overseas departments, from the Mediterranean, from sub-Saharan Africa, and the West Indies. The evidence is not clear cut that non-European immigrants constitute a racially distinct group (for example, are Turks to be thought of in these terms?), but what is clear is that persons drawn from the Indies, and North and sub-Saharan Africa were lumped together by the government and the public as such a group. In neither Britain nor France is this racially defined labor force the most important immigrant group on the basis of numbers alone. Europeans have made up the majority of migrants in both countries throughout the postwar period. A study which took as its primary purpose the analysis of the economic role of labor migration would need to attend to these other groups carefully. My purpose, however, is to

INTRODUCTION

explicate the political and policy terms in which migration of labor was processed by governments, and for these pur­ poses white or European migration is not very salient, espe­ cially in Britain. It is tempting to say that the groups which are the focus of this book share one other feature—that they are all postcolonials. This is, on the whole, true, but the difficulty is that other former colonial groups have also migrated to these countries (the Irish to Britain; West Indians to France) and were not defined as part of the immigration problem. An im­ portant characteristic which the groups under consideration have in common is that they come from Third World coun­ tries. Whether it is this factor, instead of race, which affects their situation most fundamentally is a question which I shall consider later. It is obvious from this discussion that the "problem" to which elites in France and Britain responded was not the same. What is more, the circumstances within which their response was made were very different as I shall attempt to show in the chapters to come. First, France and Britain have significantly different colonial records and the current immi­ gration problem is in many ways a product of those past decisions and experiences. The two countries have had re­ markably dissimilar policies toward aliens in general, with Britain being by far the more exclusionary. The manner in which citizenship has been defined and extended has also played a major role in stimulating and circumscribing post­ war migration and, again, the two countries have traveled divergent paths. A second element which must be taken into account before the differences in policy can be attributed to choices is the manpower requirements of the economies of the two countries. These are, of course, closely linked to the character of demographic trends and, together, economics and demography constitute a rough measure of the "need" for immigration. In addition, the relative receptivity of the mass public to an influx of racially and culturally hetero­ geneous races (as well as, one should add, the differential

INTRODUCTION

capacities of such groups to assimilate and adapt) may be taken as a basic constraint within which decision makers maneuvered. Finally, the willingness or capacity of workingclass institutions and other nongovernmental actors to organ­ ize migrants, or to exploit them for political purposes, could significantly increase or reduce the number of options avail­ able to decision makers. Each of these subjects will be examined in the pages to come. The period covered by the study is in general the postwar era. Exact time limits cannot be established and are not desirable. Because I want to understand current behavior and attitudes as in part the outgrowth of earlier periods, some attention will be given to the historical antecedents of con­ temporary policy and opinion—particularly the colonial legacy. More recent events in the two countries have not necessarily occurred in the same periods. The issues of race and immigration in Britain have been most important be­ tween 1958 and 1972. Although I shall treat events that occurred both before and after those dates, they constitute the general boundaries of the original research on Britain which serves as the basis of the study. Setting limits for France is not so simple. Particular attention will be given to the immediate postwar period, the Algerian crisis, and more recent developments, especially from May-June 1968 to Jan­ uary 1975. THE PLAN OF THE BOOK

The organization of the presentation reflects a compromise between a need for some understanding of the sequences of events and a desire to treat the subject analytically. I have decided to integrate materials on the two countries in the same chapters rather than present them separately in order to avoid repetition and to achieve a more coherent argument. Chapter 2 consists of a discussion of the nature of postwar migration to Britain and France and an exploration of the effects of colonialism, decolonization, and citizenship law on

INTRODUCTION

both the occurrence of migration and the response to it. Chapter 3 considers the specific manner in which the issues first came to public notice, how they slowly moved from the periphery to the center of the political system, and how they were initially defined. It attempts to outline the terms of the original debate and trace the movement from "no policy" to policy. Chapter 4 is an examination of the dynamics of race and immigration as political issues and the manner in which French and British political elites sought to establish a legiti­ mating consensus on policy. Chapter 5 analyzes government policy in the two countries on the question of immigration in both its regulatory and social policy aspects and the question of domestic race relations. The focus is on eluci­ dating the assumptions, goals, measures, and tools of policy and assessing which country had the richest set of alternatives as well as which was more responsive to the issue. The second half of the study moves to a more detailed examination of both the key elements in the debate and the major social groups involved. Chapter 6 is devoted to the political economy of immigration and in particular to the analysis of immigration perceived as a component of eco­ nomic policy. Chapter 7 discusses the dilemma of the politi­ cal left and the approach of socialist and communist parties and trade unions to the problems of foreign workers. Chapter 8 turns to the linkages between masses and elites, the special role of demagogues, and the impact of ideologies of racism and nationalism. In the final chapter, the strands of the argu­ ment are woven together and an explanation of the findings is offered.

CHAPTER 2

Labor Migration and the Colonial Legacy This is a trap set by history. We in France and Europe have been accustomed to colo­ nizing the world. Now the foreigners are coming here to us. Pierre Messmer 9 May 1973

THE introduction of large numbers of former colonial peoples into Western European societies has been a process heavily tinged with irony. Whether it is a cruel trick of history, as Messmer suggests, or a new chapter in the continuing saga of European exploitation is a question upon which I shall attempt to throw some light. Before proceeding to that task, however, it will be useful to inquire into the genesis of the current problem, which will be found in the colonial pasts of France and Britain, and to provide some basic information on the scope and content of the migrant streams. THE SIZE AND CHARACTER OF THE MIGRATION This short section will attempt to do three things: provide some idea of the size and pattern of the immigration into France and Britain in recent years; indicate the sources of that migration and how they have changed over time; and explore the distribution of the migrants within socioeconomic categories. Statistics on immigration, especially in Britain, have been the subject of intense controversy and their relia­ bility or meaning is clouded by the idiosyncratic definitions which officials have employed. Therefore, those figures which

COLONIAL LEGACY

are presented should be interpreted with great care and should be taken as indicative rather than conclusive. By 1966 there were 2,603,000 persons living in the United Kingdom who had been born outside the country. They con­ stituted 5.0 per cent of the total population. In France, in 1973, there were 3,705,804 foreigners who comprised 7.13 per cent of the total population.1 But these figures are not equally useful for present purposes since in Britain the num­ ber of foreigners in the country was never a political issue. Instead, the meaningful statistics must relate to Common­ wealth immigrants, and especially to persons from the West Indies, India, and Pakistan. It is to these groups that most of the statistics to be presented here will refer. Furthermore, it is not just immigrants but nonwhites who are at issue, and that means that persons born in the U.K. who were nonwhite should be considered as well as immigrants, strictly defined. Since the government collects statistics not by race but by birthplace, it is impossible to have an accurate picture of the nonwhite population of Britain. In 1966 the Survey of Race Relations made an estimate based on adjustments of official statistics that there were 924,200 nonwhites in the country, of whom 710,900 were born overseas and 213,300 were born in the U.K.2 It has been estimated that by mid-1971 there were 1.5 million persons of New Commonwealth ethnic origin in the United Kingdom and these constituted 2.5 per cent of the total home population. About one-half of these had been born in Britain.3 The patterns of the migratory movements into France and Britain have been rather dissimilar. The figures for France for most of the years from 1946 to 1972 are given in Table 1. They are taken from the records of the National Immigration Office (ONI) and underestimate the total number of for1 Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack, immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe. 2 E.J.B. Rose et al., Colour and Citizenship, p. 99. 3 Cited in John Simons, "Great Britain," p. 612.

COLONIAL LEGACY

Table 1 Immigration to France, 1946-1972 Year

Total

Year

Total

1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957

30,171 68,223 57,039 58,782 10,525 20,996 32,752 15,361 12,292 19,029 65,428 111,693

1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1970 1971 1972

82,818 44,179 48,914 78,927 113,069 115,523 153,731 152,063 131,725 174,243 136,004 98,074

SOURCES: Adapted from Pierre Bideberry, "Bilan de vingt annees d'immigration, 1946-1966," Revue Frangaise des Affaires Sociales 21 (April-June 1967), 14; Conseil National du Patronat Francais, Notes et Arguments 40 (December 1973).

eigners entering France because they do not include clan­ destine and illegal immigration that apparently reached very high levels in the late sixties and Algerian, and black African entrants covered by special accords. Table 2 provides us with information on the ethnic com­ position of the migration for the years 1962, 1968, and 1970. The figures refer to the total number of immigrants in France and document the growing size and importance of the pool of non-European workers. The evidence is that the EEC countries, especially Italy and Spain, were becoming much less important sources of manpower. Their place was being taken by Portugal and, most notably, by the North African countries, of which Algeria was by far the most important contributor. The table, which is based on census figures, does not include estimates of the black African population in France nor of the arrivals from the overseas departments. For Britain, it is necessary to look at three distinct periods: pre-1962 before the institution of controls on Common-

COLONIAL LEGACY

Table 2 Number of Immigrants in France, by Country of Origin %

Country of Origin 1962 EEC Italy Spain Portugal Yugoslavia Poland North Africa Algeria Morocco Tunisia Total

770,796 628,956 441,658 50,010 21,314 177,181 410,373 350,484 33,320 26,569

35.52 28.98 20.35 2.30 .98 8.16 18.91 16.15 1.53 1.22

1968

%

1970

%

713,560 585,880 618,200 303,160 48,200 131,280 619,480 471,020 88,280 60,180

26.78 21.99 23.20 11.57 1.80 4.92 23.24 17.68 3.31 2.25

713,142 592,787 645,705 607,069 65,539 107,369 917,657 650,000 170,836 96,821

21.67 18.01 19.62 18.45 1.99 3.26 27.89 19.75 5.19 2.94

2,664,000

2,169,665

3,390,000

SOURCE: Conseil National du Patronat Francais, Notes et Arguments 26 (March 1972).

wealth immigration; 1962-1972 during the operation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts, 1962 and 1968; and 19731975, the years since the Immigration Act of 1971 went into effect. The data are given in Tables 3-5, for West Indians, Pakistanis, and Indians. Table 3 Estimated Net Inward Movement of West Indians, Indians, and Pakistanis, 1955-30 June 1962 Year 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962, June 30 Total

West Indies

India

Pakistan

Total

27,550 29,800 23,000 15,000 16,400 49,650 66,300 31,800

5,800 5,600 6,600 •J,200 2,950 5,900 23,750 15,050 75,850

1,850 2,050 5,200 4,700 850 2,500 25,100 25,680 67,330

35,200 37,450 34,800 25,900 27,400 58,050 115,150 72,530 402,680

259,500

SOURCE: Adapted from Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities, 1973, p. 34.

COLONIAL LEGACY

Table 3 contains a number of important pieces of infor­ mation. The first is that in the years before controls the pre­ dominant source of immigration was the West Indies. Indi­ viduals from this area were black-skinned and though they spoke English were usually poorly educated and unskilled. The second point is that in 1961 and the first part of 1962 before the act went into effect, there was a massive "beat the ban" rush to get into Britain. After the 1962 act, the immi­ gration figures changed dramatically. Individuals could enter the country only if they held Ministry of Labour work vouchers or if they were dependents of someone who did. Table 4 demonstrates that the voucher system was relatively effective in slowing the movement of workers from the three areas. By 1972 the number of West Indians entering Britain had dropped to only 61, and the number of Indians and Pakistanis stood at 225 and 62, respectively. But the total number of immigrants from these countries was much greater because of the British practice of allowing dependents to Table 4 Ministry of Labour Voucher Holders Admitted 1 July 1962 to December 1972 Year

1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

West Indies

1,600 2,077 2,635 2,987 628 630 240 304 322 110 61

India

Pakistan

646 8,366 3,828 3,794. 2,433 2,175 930 1,382 791 634 225

391 13,526 3,296 2,520 721 754 374 511 381 296 62

Total

2,637 23,969 9,759 9,301 3,782 3,559 1,544 2,197 1,494 1,040 348

SOURCES: For 1962-1968, see Commonwealth Immigrants Act, Sta­ tistics, Cmd. 2397, 2658, 3258, 3594, cited in Katznelson, p. 35. For 1969-1972, see Cmd. 4327, 4620, 4951.

COLONIAL LEGACY

enter, as Table 5 indicates. As the number of persons re­ ceiving vouchers dropped precipitously, the number of de­ pendents entering remained relatively high. By 1972, the annual entry of dependents had yet to drop below the 10,000 level, although in that year only 348 voucher holders were Table 5 Dependents Admitted 1 July 1962 to December 1972 Year

West Indies

1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972

3,730 7,896 11,461 11,147 9,878 11,211 3,346 3,161 2,761 539 467

India

Pakistan

1,565 6,616 8,770 12,798 13,357 15,822 9,411 8,286 5,406 5,077 5,886

505 3,304 7,046 6,763 9,319 17,506 7,393 11,880 9,190 6,287 4,956

Total

5,800 17,816 27,277 30,708 32,554 44,539 20,150 23,327 17,357 11,703 11,309

SOURCES: See Table 4.

admitted. That situation was changed in 1973 with the operation of the Immigration Act 1971. As Table 6 indicates, the numbers of persons of any category arriving from the three areas under discussion were very small. The persons who came to France and Britain were not randomly distributed among either job categories or indus­ tries. Table 7 gives some information on the qualification levels of certain groups of foreigners in the two countries. One can see that only Indian men in Britain approximate the normal distribution among the manual and nonmanual occu­ pational categories. Jamaicans and Pakistanis are over­ whelmingly concentrated in manual positions. In France, foreigners are much more likely to be doing unskilled labor than are French workers. The percentages for France are

1974 1975

8 2 — —

21 28

1 —

34 31 81 93

West Indies 1973

* Figures refer to January I-August 21, 1973. SOURCES: Immigration Statistics, Cmd. 5603, 6064, 6504.

Work Permit Holders: 12 months Less than 12 months Trainees Dependents of Permit Holders 200 59 69 87

1973 1975

305 114 9 156

1974

326 146 31 143

India

27*

75

95

1973 1974 1975 22* 83 109 12 49 2* 9* 5 —

Pakistan

Table 6 Entry of West Indians, Indians, and Pakistanis under Immigration Act 1971

256 92 159 207

1973

430 186 37 218

1974

Totals

422 165 9 251

1975

COLONIAL LEGACY

based on the total number of Frenchmen or foreigners in each category and, therefore, are not strictly comparable to those for Britain. Table 7 Qualification Level of National and Foreign Work Force, Britain and France Birthplace Jamaica Other Caribbean India Pakistan All countries

% Manual

% Nonmanual % Other

Britain (men only)—1966 93.7 4.0 84.1 13.0 61.1 35.8 87.0 11.3 65.6 32.3

2.3 2.9 3.1 1.7 2.1

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

France—1968 % French % Foreign (all foreigners) Unskilled manual Semiskilled manual Skilled manual Miners & apprentices Clerks, supervisors, foremen, technicians Other Total

14 34 37 6

38 31 25 4

6 3 100

1 1 100

SOURCES: Great Britain: 1966 Census, Economic Activity Tables, adapted from Castles and Kosack, Table 111-18, pp. 88-90. France: Rapports des Commissions du 6th Plan, 1971-75, Emploi, II, 48.

Tables 8 and 9 contain information on the types of eco­ nomic activity in which foreigners are engaged. One can see that in Britain, the West Indians, Indians, and Pakistanis are most likely to be working in the engineering and electrical goods industry, and in transport and communications. Indians tend to be found in professional and scientific serv­ ices and Pakistanis are likely to be working in the textiles industry. In France, foreigners make up over 32 per cent of the construction and public works industries. In addition,

COLONIAL LEGACY

Table 8 Economic Activity of Males in Employment, Selected Birthplace Groups, Britain, 1966 Selected Industries

Total in employment Food, drink, tobacco Metal manufacture Engineering and electrical goods Vehicles Other metal Textiles Clothing and footwear Construction Transport and communication Distributive trades Professional and scientific services Miscellaneous services Public administration and defense

Jamaica

India

Pakistan

65,000

104,000

50,000

%

%

%

3.8 9.2 11.8 6.4 6.5 2.0 1.3 13.5 14.3 3.4 1.8 4.1 1.5

2.7 7.5 14.5 4.7 3.7 5.6 1.0 5.1 11.6 6.4 10.0 5.9 6.4

2.9 11.0 10.8 5.5 8.5 20.7 2.1 1.7 7.2 4.5 3.6 5.3 2.1

SOURCE: Castles and Kosack, pp. 76-77, Table III-13.

they account for 27 per cent of all sanitation workers, 18 per cent of all workers in mining, and large percentages of workers in the metal, glass, ceramics, and chemical industries. THE IMMIGRANT-COLONIAL NEXUS

The subject of immigration into France and Britain was not completely exotic in the postwar period. There had been sizable immigration before the war, especially in France, and smaller but distinct movements of aliens into Britain had been the occasion for bitter conflict.4 More important, how­ ever, is the fact that the current issues which this study is analyzing have roots in the colonial pasts of the two coun­ tries. It is impossible to understand adequately the develop­ ment of contemporary immigration and the European re4 See Paul Foot, Immigration and Race in British Politics·, and John A. Garrard, The English and Immigration, 1800-1910.

COLONIAL LEGACY

Table 9 Proportion of Labor Force that Is Foreign, Selected Industries, France Activity

Percentage of workers foreign

Mining Production of metals Metal workers Mechanical workers Machine workers Glass, ceramics and construction materials Chemicals Rubber and asbestos Textiles Clothing and fabrics Leather and skins Agriculture and foodstuffs Forestry and furniture Construction and public works Transport (except SNCF and RATP) Sanitation All activities

18.5 22.7 17.7 14.2 15.1 17.7 11.3 17.1 13.2 5.5 7.7 10.0 13.1 32.2 8.3 27.4 17.2

SOURCE: CNPF, Notes et Arguments 40 (December 1973).

sponse without grasping this link. Therefore, before moving in the next chapter to a detailed description of the rise of immigration and race as salient domestic political issues after the war, it is necessary to consider briefly the colonial con­ texts out of which they emerged. There is a school of thought which holds that European expansionism is more than marginally responsible for the immigration and race crisis of today. More directly, this theory sees the secondary migration of Third World workers to the industrial centers as a mere extension of colonialism and as a new stage in capitalist imperialism. Rather than ex­ ploiting the natural resources of the colonies, in this new form European imperialism extracts labor power in a reck­ less and dangerous fashion. This is a serious analysis which will be treated in detail in chapter 7. My purpose here is to

COLONIAL LEGACY

examine those more marginal ways in which the colonial experience has shaped the definition and treatment of immi­ gration as an issue of public policy. This section asks how past colonial activities created the conditions which fostered the influx of Third World peoples into the "mother country," and how the colonial experience or legacy affected the European response to those events. To treat these questions, it is necessary to make rather sweep­ ing generalizations and oversimplifications. This seems justi­ fiable since the colonial period is not the primary focus of the inquiry, and to deal adequately with the nuances of the French and British approach to colonialism and, more im­ portantly, decolonization would require more space than is available. Most of the men and women who make up the immigrant populations in Britain and France are part of a historical process that Katznelson has called the "case of the immi­ grant-colonial amalgam, the case of apparent voluntary mi­ gration (in the sense of the absence of overt coercion) that is at least partly the product of a colonial or quasi-colonial contact situation."5 The movement of large numbers of workers and their families from the "developing" countries to the industrial centers of Europe can only be understood as the consequence of the colonial contact situation. It is perhaps idle to speculate whether this mass migration might have occurred had there been no colonial experience. It is conceivable that the economic exigencies of the international system might have induced such a phenomenon. But there can be no doubt that the process would have been much different, at least for Britain and France. The most obvious evidence for this is that the overwhelming majority of Third World migrants to these two countries have come from their former colonies. Even if one takes into account geographical proximity one would expect a more random distribution. The strong link between immigration and colonialism has many important policy consequences. These are the result of 5

Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities, p. 37.

COLONIAL LEGACY

the ideas and myths that accompanied the colonial period (the remnants of which are still evident), the policies carried out in the colonies, and, especially, the manner in which decolonization was brought about. These three factors have shaped the debate over the following :(1) who is a citizen of Britain and France, (2) who shall be allowed to enter these countries, (3) what shall be the domestic policy toward im­ migrants. In order to demonstrate the impact of the colonial experience on these three sets of questions, it is necessary to consider certain aspects of French and British colonial ideology and practice. The differences between the colonial policies of these two countries have often been overemphasized.6 Furthermore, it is probably wrong to speak of British or French "policy," since there were as many approaches to colonization as there were colonies, and both countries demonstrated a remarkable adaptability to local circumstances.7 Still, there were general characteristics which applied to British and French policies which distinguished them, one from the other, and which are of special interest here because they have affected their sub­ sequent immigration programs. The three aspects of the colonial experience that most concern us here are the degree to which the colonizer attempted to export his own culture and institutions, the political role which the colonizer en­ visioned for the colony, and the nature of the administrative structure developed to govern the new territories. There is no doubt that both France and Britain attempted to make a gift of their culture to the people of the colonies. The view of the early British imperialists on this matter has been summarized by A. P. Thornton: It became their faith that it was the role of the British Empire to lead the world in the arts of civilization, to bring light to the dark places, to teach the true political method, 8

On this point consult Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa, pp. 63-67. See, for example, Rudolf von Albertini's argument on French Al­ gerian policy and the British approach to Uganda in his Decoloniza­ tion, pp. 334-335. 7

COLONIAL LEGACY

to nourish and to protect the liberal tradition. It was to act as trustee for the weak, and bring arrogance low. It was to represent in itself the highest aim of human society.8 Yet there seems to be general agreement that in actual practice the British were detached and pragmatic, while the French set about the task of propagating their culture with true missionary zeal.0 As Marshall notes in his recent study of the French colonial myth: As a question of principle, the idea that France, one of the leading nations of the world and a center of Western civilization—indeed of civilization itself—possessed a special mission to civilize the remote and isolated areas of Africa, the Far East, and the Caribbean, was self-evident to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Louis XIV.10 The firm commitment to the universality of the French cul­ ture and language and to its infinite adaptability to circum­ stance gave the French the incentive to push on even when the rewards, material or otherwise, were meager or nonexist­ ent. As Wallerstein suggests, while it is obvious that French imperialism was profitable, and designed to be so, it is also evident that there was an idea which transcended the material dimensions of colonialism and at least marginally distin­ guished the French from the British version.11 It is difficult to write about the role Britain and France foresaw for their colonies since these ideas evolved over time as the character and circumstances of the colonies changed. Neither country developed a single policy for all their over­ seas territories. Britain had a complicated system of colonies, dominions, protectorates, and dependencies, and a particular 8

Imperialist Idea and Its Enemies, p. ix. Wallerstein, pp. 66-67, 75-76. 10 D. Bruce Marshall, French Colonial Myth and ConstitutionMaking in the Fourth Republic, p. 12. 11 Africa, p. 66. For one economic argument for the French col­ onies, see Jules Ferry's proposals, cited in Raoul Girardet, L'Idee coloniale en France, pp. 46-47. 9

COLONIAL LEGACY

future was envisioned for each class. Likewise, the French hoped to guide their possessions into a number of separate statuses. This said, however, one may still argue that in their basic approach to the relationship between the colonial power and the colonies, the two countries operated from different perspectives. The primary themes which separated the British and French on this question have been explored by Rudolf von Albertini in his authoritative study: Britain fixed its policy on the basis of self-governing colonies . . . basing the Commonwealth on a loose part­ nership. France, on the other hand, started from a supra­ national concept of "the French" which embraced both the citizens of the metropolis and the colonial subjects; it aimed at an integrated total population of a hundred million inhabitants of the national territory, which ex­ tended to the colonies and formed, or was to form, an indissoluble unity.12 Albertini goes on to point out that in the postwar period of decolonization the similarity between the French and British decisions to grant their colonies freedom was more apparent than real. The British meant by this self-government. For the French, however, freedom was understood as "individual freedom within la plus grande France, i.e., equal status for the colonial inhabitants and those of the metropolis."13 Contrast this to the statement of policy issued by Attlee's Labour Government in a 1948 White Paper: 12 Decolonization, p. 266. For a further examination of the French view, see Herbert Luethy, France Against Herself, pt. 3. 13 Decolonization, p. 266. Marshall writes on this point: ". . . the colonies also served to demonstrate the universal character of repub­ lican principles, which were thought to be applicable anywhere re­ gardless of the social or cultural differences that distinguished the overseas territories from France. Thus, republicans gradually con­ vinced themselves that associating the colonies closely with France would ensure that colonial peoples would share the advantages of modern French political life to their mutual advantage" (p. 6).

COLONIAL LEGACY

The central purpose of British colonial policy is simple. It is to guide the colonial territories to responsible selfgovernment within the Commonwealth in conditions that ensure to the people concerned both a fair standard of living and freedom from oppression in any quarter.14 The British, while convinced of their own superiority to the people of the "backward nations,"15 apparently never thought it possible or desirable that all the Queen's subjects should actually become British. There were no black M.P.'s in the British Parliament, as there were in France, and there was much less of the romantic notion of a far-flung, integrated, national community that was to be found among the French elite. The idea of Commonwealth, with its multiracial loyal subjects of the Crown, was a potent symbol, but it did not carry with it the actual fusion of political and social systems foreseen in French rhetoric.16 The most common distinction drawn between colonialism as practiced by the British and French is that between indirect and direct rule. In this the British have most often been the beneficiaries of extravagant praise for their foresight and moderation, and the French have been found almost laugh­ ably romantic and incredibly cruel. This genre of histori­ ography approaches caricature and is easily subject to abuse. 14Quoted in Stewart C. Easton, The Twilight of European Co­ lonialism, p. 31. 15Ibid., pp. 517-521. 16 Albertini, p. 78. The editorial in the April 1973 The Round Table is an interesting example both of British devotion to the ideal of Commonwealth and ambivalence to the idea of actually carrying the thing too far. The article notes approvingly that "by conquest, annexation, agreement, settlement, or birth, subjecthood under the Crown was extended to them all [the newly acquired people] so that they all became 'the King's subjects'—equal in that respect whether they were natives of London or Calcutta or Sydney." Yet it goes on to point out that the Commonwealth ideal should be flexible enough to permit the restriction of the freedom of persons not of "British stock" to come to the mother country. See "Immigration and the Idea of Commonwealth," pp. 139-144.

COLONIAL LEGACY

First, both the French and the British employed aspects of direct rule in certain colonies and indirect rule in others. Furthermore, the supposed humanitarian and cultural benefits which flowed from indirect rule were mixed at best. While it is true that the British weathered decolonization more grace­ fully than the French, the effect the form of colonial rule had on this is not clear and certainly was only one of a number of important factors. It does seem apparent that indirect rule permitted the preservation of indigenous cultures and social structures. A strong argument can be made that this is de­ sirable, yet as Albertini suggests, the net effect of indirect rule was conservative, resulting in the perpetuation of auto­ cratic and reactionary regimes and in the retardation of the process toward self-government.17 Albertini also points out that the choice of indirect rule by the British was governed not only by their proclaimed position as "trustee" of their colonies and their aversion to following a policy of assimilation or integration toward native peoples, but also because it was relatively inexpensive and could be carried out by a small staff.18 The theory of indirect rule was most clearly enunciated by Lord Lugard and it con­ sisted of three fundamental principles:(1) the British would recognize the authority of the native chiefs; but (2) these chiefs should govern not as independent but dependent rulers; and (3) the orders of the government should be transmitted through these intermediaries.19 This position may be con­ trasted with that of the French: The rule which determines the attributions of the native chief must be as follows: they have no power of their own of any kind, for there are not two authorities in the cercle, French authority and native authority, there is but one! . . . The native chief is only an instrument, an auxiliary.20 17

18 Ibid., p. 139. Decolonization, p. 295. p. 125. He writes: "Every colonial administration needed the chiefs, village headmen, tribal leaders, etc. Indirect rule was to mean that these men were not just used as instruments and mouth­ pieces but actually ruled." 2» Ibid., p. 338. 19Ibid.,

COLONIAL LEGACY

The French, drawing on a tradition of a centralized state and a concept of an indivisible sovereignty, sent large numbers of soldiers, administrators, and civilians to direct their colonies and they tended purposely to draw administrative boundaries which bore no relation at all to social structure. The immigration and race relations policies of France and Britain will be considered in more detail in chapters 3-5, but here I wish to establish (to the extent possible) the links between these two colonial traditions, unavoidably abstracted and oversimplified in this short survey, and three key issues relevant to the present study—the definition of citizenship, the rights of immigration to the mother country, and the nature of domestic policy toward immigrants. Countries which are confined to a single national territory encounter few problems in determining who is a citizen. The idea of citizenship involves the notion of membership or belonging, and citizenship laws, then, define who is included and who is excluded from the national community.21 Both Britain and France, because of their far-flung empires, have experienced many unusual difficulties in determining who are citizens. Because one of the rights that attaches to citizenship is that of free entry into one's native land, this confusion has affected the course of immigration in both settings. The French and British legal traditions have resulted in dissimilar approaches to the question of citizenship. The French have developed a complex and detailed code de nationalite which clearly states that French citizenship is a privilege granted to those who meet certain prescribed stand­ ards, such as French birth and service to the French nation. The British, on the other hand, had no formal code. As Nicholas Deakin remarks, "the link which bound the Queen's old and new subjects together was allegiance to the Crown "22

After World War II, the changes which had been wrought and were still going on in the colonial systems of Britain and 21 Τ. 22

H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class, p. 10. "The British Nationality Act of 1948," p. 77.

COLONIAL LEGACY

France demanded revisions in the legal definitions of citizen­ ship. In particular, it was necessary to provide for the status of persons in newly independent countries, especially the European settlers in those countries, and the individuals still living in dependent territories. The British answer to these perplexing problems was the British Nationality Act of 1948, which created two primary categories of British citizenship— citizenship of those former colonies now independent Com­ monwealth countries, and citizenship of the "United Kingdom and Colonies," that is, of all the rest of what had been the British Empire. Members of both categories were British subjects and Commonwealth citizens.23 Erudite jurists admit confusion over the exact meaning of this complex and baffling law, and no one seems fully to have grasped its political impact.24 It is apparent, however, that the act was the cul­ mination of a series of controversies which focused on the question of the rights of movement obtaining to subjects of the British Crown. Within the Commonwealth, individual countries had had the right since 1918 to establish restrictions on the immigration of other Commonwealth citizens—only Great Britain had steadfastly refused to exercise that option.25 And, as Deakin has shown, the intent of the authors of the bill was to guarantee the continuation of free entry, not to create a new right as its many critics have argued.26 The French were particularly concerned about the status of French people who were living in territories being granted independence. In 1960 they revised their citizenship code, under which these individuals would have become citizens of the new states, to make it possible for them to reclaim their French citizenship.27 They also liberalized access to French citizenship in a move designed to draw the colonies closer to them. 23

J.E.S. Fawcett, "British Nationality and the Commonwealth," p. 262. 24 Deakin, "British Nationality Act," p. 77. 25 Ibid., p. 78. 26 Ibid., p. 82. 27 Assemblee nationale, Debats, 11 July 1960, p. 1844.

COLONIAL LEGACY

It is worth observing that the existence of the colonies had a tremendous impact on French and British decisions re­ garding the question of who could enter the national terri­ tory. The British commitment not to restrict the entry of any of the Crown's subjects was not reversed until 1962. No such blanket policy was ever adopted by France, although certain territories considered integral parts of the French nation were granted unfettered immigration rights. The question of citizenship extended beyond the decision about who would be admitted into the country. As Τ. H. Marshall pointed out some years ago, citizenship is a multi­ dimensional idea which entails political, social, and civil rights.28 Immigrants who were citizens could claim the right to permanent settlement, to equal pay, to full participation in the political system. It was much more difficult for gov­ ernments to treat citizens as factors of production, moving them about as needed, tightly regulating their lives. Citizen­ ship served, therefore, as a form of protection for those who had it, but it also in a perverse way caused immigration to appear more threatening than it would have otherwise. Im­ migration was seen to be permanent when it involved the movement of persons possessing citizenship rights and its very irreversibility made it all the more distasteful for some. One may interpret much of postwar immigration policy in Britain as an attempt to remove rights of citizenship too generously extended during the colonial period. The hap­ hazard nature of British citizenship and immigration law re­ flects the diverse and contradictory goals it has been asked to serve. It has had to make racial distinctions without ap­ pearing to do so, adapt itself to the strictures of the EEC on labor movement, and respond to a series of crises in East Africa involving U.K. passport holders. In some ways the French citizenship law is more complex than that of the British. For years Algerians were treated as French citizens and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were extended many of the privileges of citizenship, while persons 28

Citizenship and Social Class.

COLONIAL LEGACY

coming from the overseas departments were citizens in fact. But large numbers of migrants in France were not citizens and this meant that they could be denied political and social, as well as economic, equality. Nevertheless, it is clear that when the French citizenship code was rewritten in 1945 one of its primary purposes was to encourage the permanent settlement of immigrants.29 As I will show in chapter 3, those persons who favored such a demographic policy were not successful and a more restrictive stance toward the grant­ ing of membership within the French nation eventually emerged victorious. The legacy of colonialism may be seen in many of the policies that have been adopted toward immigrants from the Third World once they are in France or Britain. This has taken several distinct forms. Perhaps the strongest state­ ment of this linkage has been made by Katznelson in his study of British race relations. He argues that a "key feature of classic colonial patterns of social control—indirect rule through a broker, native leadership has been replicated in the mother country."30 He means that the structures created to link immigrants to the political system—the National Committee on Commonwealth Immigrants and its local liaison committees, and the Community Relations Commis­ sion and its conciliation machinery—shared many character­ istics with the colonial structures of indirect rule. The new structures, or "buffer institutions" as Katznelson calls them, were normally composed of elites—British and immigrant— appointed by the government, who were to promote racial harmony and consensus, rather than to serve as a political representative of the immigrant community. Their primary goal and function was to take race out of the normal political channels and substitute "ineffectual paternalism" for direct immigrant participation in politics.31 Katznelson argues that the creation of buffer institutions 29

lean Bourgeois-Pichat, "France." Black Men, White Cities, p. 177 si Ibid., p. 179. 30

COLONIAL LEGACY

was the direct result of the feelings of superiority and preju­ dice which the British developed because of their colonialimperial experiences.32 One may also suggest that they repre­ sent another example of the British desire to keep the "na­ tives" at arm's length.33 Furthermore, it seems likely that they were chosen because rule through "visible" native lead­ ers was a legitimate and time-tested formula, and its adop­ tion must have seemed a logical extension of previous ar­ rangements. The French approach to domestic policy for migrants has differed dramatically from that of the British. The primary contours of that policy will be outlined in the next three chapters. As to the degree to which it represents a continua­ tion of aspects of colonial policy in the metropolis, the evi­ dence is not clear. It seems undeniable that the French have taken a more assimilationist stance than the British—they have expressed more concern in teaching immigrants their language and culture, for example, than did the British. But, on the other hand, the French would clearly prefer that the bulk of permanent settlers come from her European neigh­ bors—Spain and Portugal, notably—rather than from Mus­ lim North Africa. In addition, the French have demonstrated a marked propensity to deal with immigrant problems by establishing separate agencies and institutions specifically for that purpose. In Britain, in contrast, except for the po­ litical buffer arrangements, separate bureaucratic bodies for immigrants have been considered offensive to liberal values. Yet by no stretch of the imagination can the French policy be considered a form of indirect rule, if by that one means that they have thought it wise or necessary to deal with mi­ grants through intermediaries. Nothing could be further from the French view—institutions which handle immigrant social programs are run by the French. Therefore, there is some basis for arguing that administrative habits acquired in the colonies have been retained when the "natives" have come to France. But it would be a gross oversimplification to main32 Ibid.,

p. 176 .

33

Albertini, p. 139.

COLONIAL LEGACY

tain that French domestic policy toward immigrants is a conscious effort to transplant direct colonial rule in the metropolis. Likewise, while Katznelson's analogy between the political linkage arrangements in Britain and the institu­ tional nexus of indirect rule is intriguing and enlightening, it cannot be unilaterally extended to all domestic programs. The colonial legacy is strong, but its impact has been varie­ gated and complex. Perhaps the most obvious and important reason that colonialism directly affected French and British immigration policies is that, throughout the period of this study, both countries were undergoing a traumatic, and sometimes vio­ lent, process of decolonization. It would be unrealistic to expect that decisions affecting the rights of individuals living in colonies, or former colonies, to come to the metropolis, or decisions affecting the way they were treated once arrived, would not be deeply influenced by calculations to speed, ease, or halt the decolonization process itself. This was most evident in the case of the French who deliberately shaped their immigration arrangements to influence the course of events in North Africa. Furthermore, public reaction to Al­ gerian immigration was unavoidably, and usually negatively, shaped by the conflict in Algeria, and the fear and hatred it engendered. In a situation where, in the eyes of many ordi­ nary Frenchmen, every North African worker was a poten­ tial FLN assassin, little progress toward peaceful race rela­ tions could be expected. The massive repatriation of pieds noirs from Algeria after 1962 only exacerbated these prob­ lems. There was in both countries a sizable group of individuals who had built their careers through the promotion of coloni­ alism and empire-building. Many of these were private ad­ venturers and entrepreneurs, but others manned the govern­ ment bureaucracies with responsibility for colonial affairs. These people played an important role in debate over immi­ gration and race policies after the war. Their primary effort was to attempt to place these questions under the rubric of

COLONIAL LEGACY

colonial policy, so that particular proposals would be evalu­ ated according to their impact on colonial relations. Con­ sidering the disrepute into which this sector of the elite has fallen, it is ironic that the basic goal of their efforts was normally to keep open the door to Third World immigrants, although their motives were often ambiguous. In this they became allies with the traditional opponents of colonial ad­ ventures, who also supported open immigration for a variety of reasons, from commitment to internationalism to guilt for past colonial sins. Domestic policy toward immigrants was very often con­ cerned with, or a response to, indigenous racism. Indeed, immigration would never have been the important social is­ sue it has become if the French and British people had not demonstrated a strong proclivity to think of and treat immi­ grants as inferiors. Racism, as an ideology, developed in Europe as a justification of the policies of conquest and domination that the European powers were pursuing throughout the world, and as a rationale for the pursuit of nationalistic interests in general.34 The stereotypes, myths, and folk-cultures that developed in that period have persisted to the present day. In the final analysis, this may be the most lasting and unfortunate legacy of colonialism. This chapter has attempted to present a general introduc­ tion to the subject of immigration into France and Britain since the Second World War and to analyze the interplay between the colonial experiences of the two countries and their domestic race and immigration dilemmas. The next chapter is a more detailed account of the major directions of immigration and race relations policy since the war. 34See Louis L. Snyder, The Idea of Racialism, pp. 25-26; Jacques Barzun, Race, chs. 8 and 9; Ruth Benedict, Race, ch. 7; and Collette Guillaumin, L'Ideologie raciste.

CHAPTER 3

The Evolution of Immigration Policy since World War II

IN Britain and France during the years 1945-1975, thou­ sands of individuals, a few armed with the authority and power of the state and many others legitimated by no more than their prejudices or consciences, spoke, legislated, agi­ tated, harassed, aided, and otherwise created and respond­ ed to a series of events, facts, and ideas that have become known as the "immigration problem," or the "race ques­ tion." To abstract out of this infinitely complex set of social phenomena a pattern, a dynamic, a motive force is at once to condemn most of the data to obscurity and to impose upon the remainder a coherence that were it possessed by the events as they unfolded, was usually only imperfectly per­ ceived by the men and women who were its agents. Yet this is the task of political analysis, and it is to that purpose that this chapter is dedicated. It attempts to outline in broad de­ tail the most important characteristics of the political process that developed around immigration and race in postwar Britain and France. It is necessarily highly general, selective, and compressed. While all critical events (legislation, riots, population movement) are discussed, primary attention is given to the course of public discussion about the arrival of foreigners at the border.

GREAT BRITAIN

The story of British policy on race relations and immigra­ tion since World War II is a tale of the descent of a govern­ ment from a heady and idealistic image of itself as the cen­ ter of a vast Commonwealth—"the greatest multi-racial as-

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

sociation the world has ever known"1—to the unembarrassed announcement that "our first duty is to consider the interests and wishes of our own people."2 Because the adherents of immigration control won the first important battle on the race relations front, later attempts to deal with the matter were often sidetracked by the question of controls. Much energy and time were wasted, in a sense, by efforts to hu­ manize the provisions of successive immigration bills—time that might have been spent on more constructive measures at home. Furthermore, because the Conservative Party first instituted controls, the regulation of immigration became in­ delibly linked with the political right, and leftists, reformers, and all who wished to escape the heinous label of "racialists" felt it impossible to develop a political analysis of the ques­ tion of British-Third World relations and the role of alien labor that included the necessity to regulate the movement of workers into Britain. The immigration issue was forever identified with the color question and a high degree of emo­ tionalism and moralism was injected into it. While this is un­ derstandable on the part of individuals reacting to the draconian proposals of various governments, it nevertheless has seriously clouded the issue of the regulation of immigration. To understand how immigration and race came to be linked in British political life, it is necessary to trace the ma­ jor contours of race and immigration policy since the war. This will provide the basis for a more extended analysis of the question in succeeding chapters. Several authors have suggested "stages" into which the history of British race policy may be divided.3 These serve useful heuristic pur­ poses, but they should not imply that the government has moved from policy to policy in an erratic or haphazard man1Labour

Party, Working Party, Race Relations (Iuly 1967). Duncan Sandys, Conservative M.P. for Streatham, made this statement in support of his Private Members' Bill to put Common­ wealth immigrants on the same footing as aliens. 777 H. C. Deb. 1127 (11 February 1969). 3 See Sheila Patterson, Race and Immigration in British Politics, 1961-67, pp. 17-20; and E.J.B. Rose et al., Colour and Citizenship, p. 10. 2

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

ner. Our concern for detail and subtlety of analysis, further­ more, should not blind us to these facts: British immigra­ tion policy has since 1962 been moving steadily and without significant deviation toward an ever more restrictive, more overtly racist, and more inflexible position, but it has done so not by conscious design but in retreat; British race rela­ tions policy likewise, while changing considerably in its de­ tail, has maintained its basic assumptions which were set in 1965. Having said this, it is possible to delineate relatively distinct periods in the postwar era that are demarcated as much by events which occurred in them as by policy de­ partures. 1945-1961—The Emergence of an Issue

The first significant nonwhite immigration to Britain be­ gan in 1948 when about 400 West Indians sailed to the "mother country" in search of jobs. During the next ten years the current of immigration from the West Indies continued, but tended to mirror closely the employment situation in Britain.4 Alongside it, a parallel movement of Indians and Pakistanis began to arrive in the United Kingdom. In 1951, there were approximately 31,000 Indians, 5,000 Pakistanis, 15,000 West Indians, and about 23,000 other nonwhite im­ migrants in England and Wales. By 1961 the total nonwhite population had risen to 336,000. In that ten-year period the number of nonwhite persons per 1,000 of the total popula­ tion had risen from 1.7 to 7.3.5 These Commonwealth citizens came to Britain freely and by right. Britain had for many years had the means to tightly control the movement of foreigners into her territory. The first control legislation had been passed in 1905 and had been superseded in a period of anti-Semitic hysteria by the Aliens Restriction Act of 1914 which had been renewed periodically ever since.6 There was, consequently, ample 4Ceri

Peach, West Indian Migration to Britain·, Rose, pp. 74-81. pp. 72-73. 6 Paul Foot, Immigration and Race in British Politics, ch. 5. For an account of developments leading up to the Act, see John A. Gar­ rard, The English and Immigration, 1880-1910. 5 Rose,

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

precedent for closing the borders. What the government had not done, however, was exercise its power to prevent citizens of the various parts of the British Empire, or subsequently the Commonwealth, from entering the mother country. This was consistent with the ideology which held that all citizens of the Empire were equal subjects of the Crown and that no distinctions of race or color could be admitted. As the Em­ pire gave way to the Commonwealth, this view was given legislative reality in the British Nationality Act which gave Commonwealth citizenship to both the nationals of the newly independent Commonwealth countries and the citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (see chapter 2). The insist­ ence on supranationality was the root of much of the oppo­ sition to controls on Commonwealth immigration. To understand the British response to nonwhite immigra­ tion, it is necessary to examine the context in which the is­ sue arose. The key to unraveling the varied response to im­ migration is to ask at what point the phenomena intersected witji the concerns of groups and individuals in a position to influence policy. Issues of low salience and intensity tend to be treated on the basis of proclivities on other, more im­ portant, questions. One measure of the importance of a topic, then, may be the degree of autonomy it exhibits, the extent to which it is resolved on its own merits. Nicholas Deakin has argued that during the 1950s British immigration policy was guided less by considerations directly relevant to popu­ lation and manpower calculations than by the expected im­ pact of that policy on colonial relations.7 This is a perceptive observation and it is undeniable that as race moved from the periphery to the center of the political stage it received much more attention in its own right. But immigration per se seems never to have been treated as an autonomous subject—the successive acts in 1968, 1969, and 1971 were all partly di­ rected at problems which either emerged out of changes taking place in the Commonwealth or in British movement into the European community. And the ironclad association 7

"Politics of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill," p. 26.

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

of race with immigration meant that no initiative with re­ spect to the former could be taken independently of con­ siderations of the latter. The most important aspects of the political landscape on which immigration and race emerged were linked to the colonial heritage. This has been discussed in general terms in the previous chapter and the legal consequence of it—the dispersion of British citizenship and the right to free entry for Commonwealth citizens—has already been noted. Eco­ nomically, the immediate postwar period was one of acute labor shortage. The Attlee government was at first fearful of a recurrence of unemployment and engaged in restrictive policies toward the entry of permanent, foreign, non-Commonwealth labor. The most important instances of reliance on imported workers involved Polish war veterans and the European Voluntary Workers.8 Both programs were entered into reluctantly and with elaborate assurances to the trade unions, and the second scheme was especially strict and heavy-handed. Government fears of large-scale invasions of workers from the Continent proved mightily unfounded, however. As the years passed, and the economies of Europe entered expansionary periods, Britain found itself at a rela­ tive disadvantage in competing for workers, though a num­ ber of aliens and citizens of the Irish Republic continued to enter the country.9 8Foot, pp. 115-123; see also the insider's account of the "West­ ward Ho" European Voluntary Workers Scheme written by J. A. Tannahill, European Voluntary Workers in Britain. A further dis­ cussion of these efforts will be found in ch. 6. 9The following figures (taken from John Simons, "Great Britain") represent the number of residents of Britain born in the Irish Repub­ lic, the Old Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) and in other non-Commonwealth countries: Other Old Non-Commonwealth Irish Rep. Commonwealth Immigrants 93,000 533,000 695,000 1951 726,000 110,000 1961 844,000 739,000 125,000 1966 887,000

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

Developments in the process of decolonization weighed heavily on the government's decisions regarding Common­ wealth immigrants in the fifties. The Colonial Office and Commonwealth Relations Ofiice lobbied strongly in favor of unfettered entry since to enact controls might be taken by the newly independent nations, or those negotiating for in­ dependence, as a mark of their inferior status and thus upset the delicate bargaining. This appears to have been especially the case with official thinking about West Indian migrants during the efforts to establish a West Indian Federation, and it was uppermost in the minds of Tories after MacMillan's "Winds of Change" speech in 1960. In addition to delaying the imposition of controls much longer than might otherwise have been the case, the cluster of beliefs and symbols sur­ rounding the ideal of the Commonwealth, and especially the insistence that nonwhite immigrants were simply subjects of the Crown and equal in every respect to native Britons, led to a complacent attitude toward the problems the immigrants faced in Britain and, in particular, to an inability to admit that discrimination might exist.10 A final component of the setting into which nonwhite im­ migrants proceeded was a small but vocal nationalist, in part neo-fascist, and more or less openly racist lobby. This me­ lange of groups and individuals exploited to full advantage the real fears of the British people and the outbursts of in­ terracial violence that sporadically occurred. During the years covered by this study, the anti-immigrant lobby had 10 Rose, esp. pp. 215-216. He and his co-authors argue that con­ trary to popular belief there was a "welfare orientation" toward im­ migrants in the first years of the migration. They note that the Co­ lonial Office felt an obligation to help newcomers adjust to their new setting. They admit, however, that these policies were inadequate and paternalistic, and they certainly did not represent a coherent analysis of the problem at the highest level of the government (pp. 206-215). See also Deakin, pp. 35-36, 44. On the weakness of one of the pre1962 institutional developments—the ad hoc interdepartmental com­ mittee—and government contingency plans to effect immigration controls, see Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities, p. 128.

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

its ups and downs, but it never developed a large, active membership. It nevertheless played a key role in race politics and had significant popular support. One interpretation of its inability to acquire new militants or win Parliamentary seats is that it was outflanked by the Tories, and even La­ bour, in their haste to calm the anxieties of nativist voters. If these were the primary elements that affected the man­ ner in which the race and immigration issues would be in­ terpreted, the actual introduction of them into the political process was the outcome of several parallel and interde­ pendent developments. The most obvious is the presence of the immigrants themselves with their dark skins and exotic dress and habits. For a variety of reasons, the migrants had tended to settle in a relatively few industrial centers and they had created what amounted to foreign ghettoes in the center of many British cities, especially in the industrial Midlands. Although representatives of the immigrants sought to get the attention of public authorities from time to time, in general the presence of the immigrants became a political issue be­ cause the native whites sought to make it one. The impetus came primarily from a number of Back-Bench Conservative M.P.s who represented cities with concentrations of immi­ grants and from local authorities who felt themselves hardpressed to provide adequate services to the newcomers or to the indigenous population. These complaints were given special urgency when violence occurred between the races in a series of spectacular riots in Nottingham and London in 1958.11 The efforts of the right-wing extremists and the Conserva­ tive Back Bench have generally been credited with pushing a highly reluctant Conservative Party, against its better in­ stincts and in spite of public promises to the contrary, to introduce the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill in 1961.12 11

For a description see Edward Scobie, Black Britannia, pp. 210-

263. 12

This is the argument of Foot, ch. 7. The Economist accepted this appraisal: "It has been the Tory party in the country, not at

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

Perhaps more important than their role in precipitating the reversal of the principle of free entry, based as it was on a number of ambiguous, unrealistic, and contradictory prin­ ciples, was their decisive influence on the structuring of pub­ lic discussion about race relations and immigration. Gaitskell, the leader of the Labour Party and the man who led the fight against the bill, was surely correct when he charged that the Tories had failed to address themselves to the prob­ lems at hand and had succumbed "to the crudest clamour . . . Keep them out!"13 The anti-immigrant lobby identified the problem as an inextricably interwoven immigration/race amalgam. According to this view the host society had a very limited ability to accept and assimilate foreigners of color. The immigrants in question were particularly ill-suited to life in industrial society and faced near insuperable prob­ lems of adjustment. In its most vulgar form, this view pic­ tured immigrants as disease-carrying criminals who would rape and plunder a Britain which was already overcrowded and unable to provide for the needs of its own citizens.14 In its more moderate and orthodox version, it held that the soWestminster, that has always made the running on immigration. It was pressure from the constituency associations on Tory Central Office which eventually forced a reluctant Mr. Butler to agree to the original Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962" (1 February 1969). Katznelson has suggested that this is only part of the story: "Constituency and public opinion, back-bench pressure, Whitehall advice, and of most immediate importance, the sharply rising immi­ gration figures convinced the government to abandon its support of unrestricted Commonwealth entry" (p. 134). 13 Hugh Gaitskell, 649 H. C. Deb. 801 (16 November 1961). 14 For example, a publication of the Southall Residents' Associa­ tion (1963) claims that its members "saw their whole way of life threatened and endangered by a flood of immigrants who were gen­ erally illiterate, dirty and completely unsuited and unused to our way of life. They overcrowd their properties to an alarming degree, create slums, endanger public health, and subject their neighbors to a life of misery, annoyance, abuse and bitterness. . . . The responsibility rests directly on the politicians and can be solved quite easily . . . STOP IMMIGRATION." Quoted by Foot, p. 212.

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

lution to the problem was strict control of nonwhite immi­ gration. While controls were regrettable, they could be justi­ fied because they were in the best interests of the immigrants themselves, since they would allow the time and energy for the adaptation of those already in the country. R. A. Butler, the Conservative Home Secretary who ar­ gued the bill in Parliament, expressed this perspective on the floor: It cannot be denied that the immigrants who have come to this country in such large numbers have presented the country with an intensified social problem. They tend to settle in communities of their own . . . in big cities. The greater the numbers coming into this country the larger will these communities become and the more difficult will it be to integrate them into our national life. . . . Given a too rapid increase in the numbers of immigrants, there is a real risk that the drive for improved conditions will be defeated by the sheer weight of numbers, and the immi­ grants will be among those to benefit most if the new pow­ ers in fact prove, as we hope, to be effective.15 This was not the only alternative available. The tensions created by the presence of nonwhite immigrants could have been seen as the consequence of white intolerance and nativism, or of the woefully inadequate housing and social services available to all citizens. The racial element could have been de-emphasized by measures to regulate all immi­ gration rather than simply turning off the tap and assuming that assimilation would occur as a natural process. It seemed for a time that at least some of these alternatives might gain the day. In its opposition to the bill, the Labour Party pointed out the shallowness of the reasoning behind the restrictionist case: Do the Government deal with [the problem] by seeking to combat social evils, by building more houses and enforc15 Butler,

649 H. C. Deb. 694-695 (16 November 1961).

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

ing laws against overcrowding, by using every educational means at their disposal to create tolerance and mutual un­ derstanding, and by emphasizing to our own people the value of the immigrants and setting their face firmly against all forms of racial intolerance and discrimination? That is what we believe. . . .10 Gaitskell's eloquence was sufficient to unite his party in opposition to controls, but the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill became law nevertheless. It introduced a voucher system which was ostensibly related to labor qualifications, but since Britain faced severe labor shortages and no means were established to ensure that entering immigrants would match employers' needs, this arrangement was clearly a subterfuge to obscure the essentially racial purposes of the Act.17 1962-1965—Labour's About-face

Problems of race relations and immigration invariably present serious dilemmas to working-class oriented, socialistleaning parties and governments. It is fair to say that the race question has been a thorn in Labour's side from the be­ ginning. There are discernible differences between the Con­ servative and Labour approaches to immigration and race but their policies have tended overwhelmingly to converge. The Labour position was developed during the hiatus be­ tween the 1962 Immigration Act and their assuming the government in 1964. It was for the first time expounded in the 1965 White Paper on integration. The circuitous route by which the Labour Party moved from principled opposition in 1961 to complete acceptance of the need for controls in 1965 has been reported else­ where.18 The shift was largely unexplained and the party 16 Gaitskell,

649 H . C . D e b . 801 (16 November 1961). Foot, pp. 140-141. 18 See Rose, pp. 221-230; Katznelson, pp. 143-149; Foot, pp. 161194. 17

EVOLUTION OF POLICY

evidently had no coherent, debated position on the subject going into the 1964 general election.19 The transformation of policy came about by fits and starts until one day in 1964 the new Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, could say in the debate over the renewal of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act: "The Government are firmly convinced that an effective control is indispensable. That we accept and have always accepted. . . ."20 Opposition in the Labour Party to controls had come from several sources. Among left socialists there was a commit­ ment to the ideals of internationalism and racial tolerance and along with this a belief in the interracial Commonwealth as a useful form of international organization and coopera­ tion. But there was considerable feeling as well that mastery of immigration was a necessary adjunct to economic planning and that to ignore immigration was to invite the exacerba­ tion of social tensions.21 Furthermore, right-wing Labourites openly argued that the open door to nonwhite immigration was foolhardy and claimed to speak for the rank and file who, they said, would not tolerate this unrestrained invasion. This latter position was given a perhaps decisive boost when in the election of 1964 Labour's Shadow Foreign Minister, Patrick Gordon Walker, was defeated at Smethwick by a newcomer who waged an overtly racist campaign. It was the first time the topic of race and immigration had ever played an important role in a national election and the lesson seems not to have been lost by either party, despite their avowals of horror and disgust. After taking office in October, Harold Wilson announced that the Commonwealth Immigrants Act would be main­ tained temporarily and that a mission would be sent through­ out the Commonwealth to enlist the cooperation of the mem­ ber governments in slowing the migration at its origin. In addition, he appointed Maurice Foley as minister personally 19

Rose, pp. 223-224; Foot, pp. 178-179. 2» Soskice, 702 H . C . D e b . 290 (17 November 1964). 21 Foot, p. 189.

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responsible for integration22 and promised that the govern­ ment would introduce legislation to outlaw racial discrimina­ tion. As it turns out, the Immigration Act was permanently installed, the Mountbatten Mission to the Commonwealth was an embarrassing failure, and bilateralism (a device much favored on the Continent) died stillborn. Antidiscrimination legislation was duly introduced in April 1965. The bill (which became the Race Relations Act 1965 in November) affected only discrimination in public places (restaurants, pubs, etc.), prohibited "incitement to racial hatred," called for the use of conciliation measures to deal with offenses, and set up a Race Relations Board to administer the law.23 Finally, in August, the Prime Minister's office issued a White Paper which was the first official statement of govern­ ment policy on immigration. It called for the continuation of controls in even stricter form (the number of vouchers available each year was to be reduced to 8,500, unskilled workers were to be prohibited altogether, and tough meas­ ures were to be taken to stop illegal entry). The second half of the document contained the government's proposals for the positive promotion of integration. Most of the sugges­ tions were modest and tended to rely on voluntary efforts. A new body was created, the National Committee for Com­ monwealth Immigrants, which was to "co-ordinate on a na­ tional basis efforts directed towards the integration of Com­ monwealth immigrants into the community."24 In addition, plans were laid for the establishment of local voluntary liai­ son committees to work with the national committee. 22 The activities of Foley are treated in some detail in Rose, pp. 511-549. His career was marked by only minor achievements largely because of his weak administrative situation rather than his lack of talent or commitment. 23 The most complete study of the politics of the Race Relations Act, 1965 can be found in Keith Hindell, "Genesis of the Race Re­ lations Bill," pp. 390-405. See also Anthony Lester and Geoffrey Bindman, Race and Law in Great Britain, ch. 3; and Benjamin W. Heineman, Jr., Politics of the Powerless. 24 Immigration from the Commonwealth, Cmd. 2739, 1965.

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The White Paper drew vociferous criticism from those who had hoped that the Labour Government would reverse the direction of immigration policy. The Economist complained that Wilson had "pinched the Tories' white trousers."25 There can be no doubt that by 1965 the Labour Party had fully accepted the Conservative case for controls on nonwhite im­ migration. The decision was partly balanced by the emphasis on integration, but efforts in that field proved feeble. The attempt to use, through bilateral agreements, the mechanism of the Commonwealth in the rejection of the ideals associated with it had failed, and 1965 marks a distinctive diminution of that association's importance in British politics and espe­ cially in its impact on immigration. The authors of Colour and Citizenship argue that the White Paper ushered in a "Little England" policy "based unilaterally on the social and economic needs of this country. . . ."26 This is certainly the case in one sense. Britain would no longer allow the aggra­ vation of a domestic social problem nor would particular governments suffer political setbacks out of regard for the needs or sensibilities of the Commonwealth countries—that response was ancient history.27 Furthermore, the immigrants who were to be accepted were those with skills or profes­ sional qualifications. But a more skeptical examination of the controls shows that they bore no discernible relationship to economic needs. The figure of 8,500 vouchers per year ap­ peared to have been chosen out of the air—rather than being the number of qualified workers the British labor force re­ quired each year, it seems to have been the smallest number of immigrants even a tight-fisted Labour administration could admit without appearing overly mean and the greatest number allowable without inciting mass protest. It was a Little England policy, in other words, in which political con­ siderations clearly dominated those of economics. 25

26 Rose, p. 229. Economist, 7 August 1965 . shift in emphasis was tellingly highlighted by the decision to move the Junior Minister responsible for race relations from the Colonial Office to the Home Office. See Rose, p. 230. 27This

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The official explanation for the necessity of strengthening controls was not, of course, that the government was reso­ lutely pursuing a White Britain policy, nor did it have any direct link to the unemployment figures. Instead it was that in order to allow the government time to produce effective integration programs and to give the immigrants and the na­ tives sufficient time to adjust to each other, the influx of new­ comers would have to be slowed. The focus, then, was in­ tended to be shifted from immigration (now safely in hand in a policy agreed to by both parties) to integration. By com­ ing over to the Tory position on restrictions, Labour had tried to satisfy that part of the public disturbed by what ap­ peared to be a process of social change completely out of control and to neutralize effectively the color issue in na­ tional politics. The dynamics of the decision to "take race out of politics" will be examined later, but as we shall see the outcome was totally off the mark. Rather than depart from the scene, immigration returned again and again to trouble the sleep of both Labour and Conservative ministers, and race, so far from being neutralized through party ac­ commodation, became one of the most divisive issues in con­ temporary British politics. 1965-1972—The Political Consensus Shatters From 1965 to 1968, race relations in Britain were domi­ nated by one man—the Labour Home Secretary, Roy Jen­ kins. Working with liberals in his party, clearly sympathetic with the aims of a new pressure group-in the field, the Cam­ paign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), and relying on research which demonstrated conclusively that racial dis­ crimination and equality were serious problems in Britain, he began a carefully orchestrated campaign to extend the scope of the antidiscrimination legislation passed in 1965 and to amplify government efforts in the area of integration. His efforts bore fruit in two ways. After what seems to have been a difficult struggle, the Race Relations Act, 1968 was

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passed.28 This law extended the scope of the previous Act (which had almost universally been felt to be inadequate)29 to cover employment, housing, and credit, banking, and in­ surance facilities. The Act reconstituted the Race Relations Board and set up a Community Relations Commission to re­ place the National Committee for Commonwealth Immi­ grants. In addition, Jenkins attempted to refine and clarify the substance of British immigration policy. This involved several elements. The first was simply to de-emphasize the question of immigration and seize the initiative by concen­ trating on discrimination and integration.30 Second, he set about trying to define the objectives of integration policy. This was done in a series of important speeches delivered during 1966-1967. The best known was given in May 1966, and contained a definition of integration "not as a flattening process of assimilation but equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity, in an atmosphere of mutual toler­ ance."31 It is perhaps testimony to the utter vacuum in official thinking until then that this effort received such widespread attention. It was endlessly quoted and was generally seen to provide the basis for a liberal domestic policy. It was the most important official statement that cultural pluralism was a legitimate possibility in Britain. The third aspect of Jenkins' program was the development of a new element in the dis­ cussion—the concern for the second-generation immigrant (the contradiction in terms seemed not to be noticed) who, it was felt, must be guaranteed equal justice.32 In retrospect the high hopes that characterized those short months of 1966-1967 seem largely unjustified. In the crucial 28

For good accounts of this process, see Lester and Bindman, ch. 3; Rose, pp. 511-550. 29 For an evaluation of British race relations legislation, see Simon Abbott, ed., Prevention of Racial Discrimination in Britain, pt. 3. 30 Rose, p. 515. 31 Jenkins, Address to Meeting of Voluntary Liaison Committees, 23 May 1966. 32 Ibid.

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year 1968 a multitude of events, domestic and international, converged to bring the entire house of cards down and plunge Britain into a new and ugly period of race politics. First of all, at the end of 1967 Roy Jenkins left the Home Office to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was re­ placed by James Callaghan who took a much stronger line on immigration. Second, before the Race Relations Bill was even introduced, the government was confronted with what it considered a crisis in Kenya. As the result of the Africanization program there, many Asians who held U.K. passports were leaving the country and coming to Britain. At the time of Kenyan independence, Asians had been given the choice of receiving British passports or Kenyan citizen­ ship. Whether that option had included a pledge of the right to free entry to Britain became a controversial question, al­ though there can be no doubt that it did.33 Regardless of that, the government clearly feared a mass influx of Asians, not only from Kenya but also from other East African countries where the same agreements had been negotiated. To fore­ stall such an eventuality, the Cabinet introduced a new im­ migration bill in February which took away the right of free entry from all those possessing citizenship in the U.K. and colonies but who lacked a substantial personal connection 33 There is compelling evidence that the government had intended to guarantee the right of free entry to those who chose to acquire British passports. The primary spokesmen for the view that no right of entry was meant to be conferred were Enoch Powell and Duncan Sandys. The latter had been the Conservative Secretary of State for the Colonies during the period at issue. He should have been, there­ fore, in a position to know what had transpired. However, two other Conservatives privy to the negotiations, R. A. Butler and Iain MacIeod, both maintained that the government had expressly undertaken that should the circumstance arise, Britain would allow the Asians to immigrate. The strident role that Sandys played in the 1968 crisis is one of the shabbier episodes in a generally unpleasant story. For the controversy surrounding the problem of U.K. passport-holders in East Africa, see Derek Humphry and Michael Ward, Passports and Politics, esp. pp. 13-16; and Rose, pp. 611-612; also David Steel, No Entry.

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with the country—either by birthplace, parents, or grand­ parents. This bill was hurried through Parliament in just three days. Henceforth, East African Asians would be al­ lowed into the country at the rate of only 1,500 per year. The significance of this Act can hardly be overstated.34 It was overtly racially discriminatory since through the device of the grandfather clause the descendants of white coloni­ alists could enter the country freely, but Asian passport hold­ ers whose spouses were living in Britain had to queue up for years in some cases. It was clearly unjust in its removal of rights of citizenship from an identifiable group of citizens purely on the basis of color—in that way it made hypo­ critical nonsense of government protestations of absolute equality of the races before the law. It was a disavowal of what seems to have been an undeniably solemn commitment made to East African Asians at the time of the independence acts. The passage of the Act made a shambles of the gov­ ernment's embryonic race relations policy—it splintered and disgusted the liberals who could have been counted on to back government efforts, it frightened and humiliated immi­ grant organizations which became increasingly cynical and hostile, and it paved the way for an endless series of spec­ tacular and highly emotive controversies over the hardships of individual Asians left "stateless" by the legislation. In all, the Act was a disaster for the tone and direction of British policy and the politics of race have not yet recovered.35 This was all the more so because in 1968 Enoch Powell, 34 See Nicholas Deakin's reflections on it in "Labour Adopts a White Britain Policy," pp. 7-11. 35 In the backwash of the 1968 Immigration Act, the Labour Gov­ ernment passed an Appeals Act (1969) which allowed minimal legal recourse to Home Office decisions regarding entry or deportation. This Act has not received much attention, but it was in part a re­ sponse to decisions by the European Commission on Human Rights which had heard favorably the cases of a number of Kenyan Asians who had claimed they had been discriminated against by the British immigration law. On this, see Humphry and Ward, p. 19; and "The European Commission on Human Rights and the 'Kenyan Asians,'" Briefing Paper, no. 2/73, 1973.

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Conservative M.P. from Wolverhampton and Shadow Spokesman for Defense, began a series of startling and pro­ vocative speeches on immigration. Chapter 8 will analyze Powell's role in some detail. Here it will be sufficient to note a few of the direct consequences his intemperate outbursts had when they interacted with the other events just described. Powell attempted to show that integration was an impossible goal. He imparted a sense of hopelessness to the public dis­ cussion and he warned repeatedly that the country was head­ ed for a catastrophe. He clearly felt that since domestic measures would be futile, two options were left. The first was to shut off absolutely and forever any further movement of nonwhites into the country, and the other was to set up a Ministry of Repatriation to send back those already there. He engaged the government in an extended and muddled debate over the numbers of immigrants already in Britain, the number likely to come, and the birth rates within immi­ grant communities. All of this successfully kept attention on the immigration aspect of the problem and despite efforts on the other side, it has remained there ever since. The joint outcome of the events of 1968 was the sharp movement of the public debate to the right. The style of race politics, if not its substance, had been transformed. It has been frequently observed, but is no less correct for it, that the more the government seemed to concede to the anti-immigrant forces in an apparent attempt to buy them off, the more they demanded. Small victories only whetted their appetites and as the government proceeded to back­ pedal more and more furiously, notorious demagogues were given the satisfaction of seeing their own views become of­ ficial policy. To a great degree, this was also the case with Enoch Powell. Powell had been removed from the Shadow Cabinet by Edward Heath after his April 20 speech in Birmingham when he had warned of rivers "foaming with much blood."36 36 For the complete text of that along with other Powell speeches, see Bill Smithies and Peter Fiddick, Enoch Powell on Immigration.

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Heath's action was undeniably courageous since Powell had significant support among the party rank and file. But the luster of the decision was dulled considerably over the next two years as, in a series of pronouncements, Heath moved the Conservative Party closer and closer to Powell's own po­ sition.37 On September 20, 1968, speaking at York, Heath for the first time committed his party to putting Common­ wealth and alien immigration on the same footing. This would have the effect of removing the right Commonwealth immigrants had of settling permanently if they chose.38 The following January in Walsall, Heath went further. He promised to work for the passage of legislation by August 1969. He said that immigrants would be admitted for a specific job at a specific place for a specific time. Work per­ mits would need to be renewed each year and there would be no right to bring dependents. These proposals were em­ bodied in the Conservative Election Manifesto in 1970 which promised that "there will be no further large-scale permanent immigration."39 After winning the election in an upset,40 the Tories set about redeeming their pledges. A new immigration bill was 37 Heath's admirers have pointed out with some justification that his compromises probably prevented the Tories, who were becoming more and more whipped-up on the color issue, from moving even further to the right. The Times wrote (1 February 1969): ". . . his critics can say that his behavior is that of a weak man. What they cannot deny is that he has persuaded his party to stand still, and not go over to unrepentant Powellism: as things are, that is the sign of a humane and skillful politician." 38See Paul Foot, The Rise of Enoch Powell, p. 117. 39 For a report on Heath's address at Walsall, see the Times, 20 January 1969. For the Conservative Party program, see their pam­ phlet, A Better Tomorrow. 40 For a frankly enthusiastic interpretation of Powell's vote-getting potential, see John Wood, ed., Powell and the 1970 Election. But compare to Nicholas Deakin and Jenny Bourne, "Powell, the Minori­ ties, and the 1970 Election," pp. 402-430; and D. E. Butler and Mi­ chael Pinto-Duschinsky, The British General Election of 1970, pp. 327-328, 408.

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introduced by the Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling. No one was quite sure what the bill was supposed to do. Quintin Hogg (now Lord Hailsham), speaking at the Institute of Race Relations, suggested that the new legislation would simplify the currently obscure question of British nationality. "We cannot," he opined, "go on indefinitely multiplying the legal status of external nationals."41 He wanted to see a dual system which created British citizens and aliens. If that was the goal of the leadership, then one must conclude that they failed miserably, because the Immigration Act of 1971 and the Immigration Rules which supplemented it in 1973 creat­ ed eight separate and distinct statuses for the purposes of immigration.42 Why all this confusion? Part of it resulted because the Tories had promised to reduce future immigra41

Reported in the Times, 6 March 1970. These were: 1. Patrial U.K. passport holders A. Hold citizenship by birth, adoption, naturalization, or registration in U.K. B. Have U.K. parent or grandparent. C. Have been settled in U.K. for at least 5 years. Patrials have unrestricted entry, may settle permanently, and are the only group regarded as "nationals" for the purposes of free movement within the EEC. 2. Nonpartial U.K. passport holders. May be admitted only un­ der voucher system, must wait 5 years to moye within EEC. 3. Patrial Commonwealth citizens. Those with a parent born in U.K. Unrestricted entry, but cannot move freely in EEC. 4. Nonpatrial Commonwealth citizens with a U.K. grandparent. No right of abode but can get an entry permit without a work vouch­ er and may stay indefinitely. 5. Nonpatrial Commonwealth citizens without a U.K. grand­ parent. Must have work permit to enter. 6. Citizen of Irish Republic. Treated as patrials. 7. EEC nationals. Must register with police but may move free­ ly8. Non-Commonwealth nationals. Same as category 5 except no working holiday provisions. These categories are taken from Larry Grant and Gareth Pierce, "Immigration: The Screw Tightens," p. 94. 42

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tion through a reorganization of the law even if the latter was not necessary. In the end the Act actually created the possi­ bility of greater immigration since it developed a right to free entry for many white Commonwealth citizens that they had not enjoyed since 1962.43 The difficulty was to devise a method for excluding nonwhite immigrants while not using overtly racial criteria and at the same time allow white Commonwealth citizens to en­ ter. The means chosen to perform this feat was the concept of patriality—persons, one of whose parents or grandparents had been born in the United Kingdom, could enter freely. This category included most white colonialists and excluded almost all nonwhite Commonwealth citizens. The associa­ tion that could be made between this "grandfather clause" and the shenanigans of white Southerners in the United States preventing blacks from voting were too vivid for many individuals, however, and the grandfather version of patri­ ality was scuttled before final passage. But in 1973 when the Home Secretary released detailed rules to put the Act into effect, it had been reinserted.44 The notion of patriality, it­ self, was defended as nonracist from both sides of the floor.45 The Act as it finally emerged presented a kind of "lowest common denominator" approach. David Stephen described the bill while it was still in Parliament this way: Under present laws aliens get in easily and can settle only with some difficulty. Their position is basically unchanged. Commonwealth citizens at present find entry extremely difficult but settlement is automatic; in future, the admini­ strative obstacles to entry will be as tough as ever, but, in addition, resettlement will be made more difficult.46 43 Geoffrey Bindman, "The Immigration Bill in Parliament," p. 110. He refers to those persons (almost all white) in categories 3 and 4 in n. 42. 44 See n. 42, above. Also, Richard Plender, "New Immigration Rules," pp. 168-176. 45 See Bindman. 46 David Stephen, "Hogg Proposes, Maudling Disposes," p. 105.

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Clearly not a law intended to reduce immigration in the abstract, it was rather an attempt to strip away the last ves­ tiges of a preferential policy for Commonwealth (read nonwhite) citizens. The Act was on the surface a shift toward a manpower approach to immigration. This is what the government oc­ casionally argued.47 Robert Sharpies, Junior Minister at the Home Office, contended that "the policy for unskilled and semi-skilled workers from overseas would depend upon the current intake of overseas workers and our own country's manpower needs. Our own country's manpower needs are paramount in this respect."48 But, as one close observer of this Act points out, there was no consistent, clear, or con­ vincing evidence that the government meant to tie its immi­ gration policy to manpower considerations.49 At least one reason that such a policy had never been pursued was that political factors and especially racial calculations prevented it. In this regard, several aspects of the bill can be understood as attempts to remove immigration decision making from the political process and turn it into an administrative pro47 1 say "occasionally" because it seems that the government was not clear in its own mind what the bill was meant to do. Because the Home Secretary was occupied with other matters, the task of guiding the legislation through Parliament fell to an inexperienced Junior Minister, Lord Windlesham. This, along with the great haste with which the bill was pushed, led to a particularly muddy legislative process, marked by the absence of rigorous discussion. In fact, Roy Jenkins openly chided Maudling when he introduced the bill for not being sufficiently conversant with its details. See 813 H. C. Deb. 146 (8 March 1971). For criticisms of the Tory handling of the bill, see Hannan Rose, "Immigration Act of 1971," and the series of his articles in Race Today 3:2-8 and 4:1. 48 Quoted in H. Rose, "Immigration," p. 75. 49 Ibid. He concludes: "What is clear is that neither the Govern­ ment in arguing its case, nor the Opposition, in attacking the pro­ posals, was able to deal really effectively with the problems of the nature of migration, on what basis it should be controlled, and as a result of these considerations, what kinds of mechanisms it would be appropriate to establish" (p. 88). See also Hannan Rose, "Politics of Immigration After the 1971 Act," pp. 183-196.

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cedure. The Act concentrated power in the hands of the Home Secretary for making decisions over entry and depor­ tation, it limited rights of appeal, and included the vague concept of "the public good" as justification for the depor­ tation of a nonpatrial. It further empowered the Secretary of State to supplement the law through the issuance of "rules" which, though subject to some Parliamentary over­ sight, would be much less likely to attract wide attention. In all of this, the 1971 Act seemed to push Britain closer to the French model of immigration control—an executive pro­ cedure based ostensibly on economic considerations, domi­ nated by the strong political hand of the Home Secretary (the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Labor, Employment, and Population in France) whose power of discretion, especially in the use of deportation, is quite wide. Immigration is to be temporary and the life of the immigrant is to be tightly regulated at all points by the government. A final cause for the uncertainty that characterized the debate over the proposed law was the fact that Great Britain was moving closer to entry into the Common Market. Sur­ prisingly, the implications of EEC membership were never satisfactorily raised in the discussion. The Conservative Front Bench felt that Labour was simply using the issue to score political points.50 But, in addition, Maudling appears to have been uninformed about the actual situation. The question was what steps would be necessary to bring U.K. citizenship and immigration law into harmony with EEC requirements. Maudling contended that whatever adjust­ ments were required could be brought about by administra­ tive orders in council. But this was clearly not the case as several observers pointed out.51 It was ironic that Britain sought to bring Commonwealth immigrants under its system of alien control at the very time that, through joining the EEC, hundreds of thousands of aliens would be decontrolled. 50

H. Rose, Ibid., p. 86. David Stephen, "Immigration"; and W. R. Bohning, Migration of Workers in the United Kingdom and the European Community. 51

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This led to a further question: Who would be considered U.K. "nationals" for the purpose of free movement within the community? The government response was again to make racial distinctions. Nationals were: Citizens of the UK and Colonies or British subjects not possessing that citizenship or the citizenship of any other Commonwealth country or territory, who, in either case, have the right of abode in the UK, and are therefore exempt from UK immigration control.52 Roger Bohning has pointed out that this is a highly re­ strictive definition whose major effect is to exclude virtually all black British from the right of free movement. The 1971 Act put almost all black Commonwealth citizens under con­ trol and by its declaration on who is a U.K. national, the government, according to Bohning, was guilty of making "insidious distinctions [which] are wholly consistent with an immigration policy which rightly bears the trademark racialist."53 If the Immigration Act 1971 had been the fulfillment of the Conservatives' pledge to prevent any "further large-scale permanent immigration," it was shortly evident that the entire enterprise was a hoax. While the government now had the legal power to prevent almost all black Commonwealth citi­ zens and even U.K. passport-holders from entering the country, it did not have the ability to control international political developments. In August 1972, President Idi Amin of Uganda announced that all Asians residing in his country had three months to leave. After a good deal of frantic maneuvering and pleading, Heath and his new Home Secre­ tary, Robert Carr, concluded that if worse came to worst, they would have to accept any Asians holding U.K. passports who were expelled. Attempts were made with some success to get other countries to receive a share of the refugees and preparations for settling the Asians were begun. A Ugandan Asian Resettlement Board was established and temporary 52

Bohning, p. 133.

53

Ibid., p. 154.

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transit camps were prepared. In all, some 28,000 Asians arrived in Britain.54 There was a good deal of self-congratula­ tion among Tories for their good will and courage in all this, but they were resolved that it should never happen again. When Robert Carr introduced the orders designed to implement the 1971 Immigration Act on 23 October 1972, he was at first defeated by an alliance of Labourites who felt they abused civil liberties and disliked the notion of patriality and Tories who wanted special concessions to the old white Commonwealth. On January 25, he returned with a set of amended rules which included the "Grandfather Clause" which had been taken out of the 1971 law. Carr himself issued a press statement in which he made clear that Britain would never again accept a large-scale influx of nonwhite immigrants: When Asians resident in Uganda were summarily expelled last year the Government immediately accepted its obli­ gations to our passport-holders who had nowhere else to go and the people of this country responded with char­ acteristic generosity to the plight of the refugees. . . . The Government considers that to have a similar burden thrust on us again would impose unacceptable strains and stresses. . . . The Government therefore thinks it right . . . to make it clear that while we shall continue to accept our responsibility to UK passport-holders by admitting them in a controlled and orderly manner through the special voucher scheme, this is as much as it is reasonable and realistic for us to do if good community relations are to be maintained in Britain.55 In the ten years that had passed since a British govern­ ment had first chosen to restrict the right of Commonwealth citizens to come into the United Kingdom a staggering 54 Humphry and Ward; Christine L. Smith, "The Resettlement of the Ugandan Asians in the United Kingdom," Briefing Paper, no. 3/73, 1973; Justin O'Brien, "General Amin and the Ugandan Asians." 55 Quoted in Humphry and Ward, pp. 144-145.

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amount had been written and said about race and immigra­ tion. An inordinate portion of the government's and the public's time and energy had been expended in attempts to deal, one way or another, with the "problem." In comparison with the actual size of the migration (in 1970 ncnwhites com­ prised only about 2.5 per cent of the population),56 the con­ troversy it occasioned is remarkable. No less striking is the transformation through which the public discussion of the issue went. It may be said, nevertheless, that British policy was all of a piece—a consistent, ever more bold attempt to keep out the blacks.

FRANCE The career of immigration and race relations as political issues in France bears several remarkable similarities to the British case. As the story unfolds, the reader will notice the parallel importance of racial violence and the agitation of the nationalist right wing, the familiar tendency of public officials to ignore the problem until it is literally thrust under their noses, the same slow but ineluctable movement toward in­ creasing control and regulation of immigration. But there are also significant, even fundamental, differences between the two cases. 1945-1967—Control in Theory, "Laissez-faire" in Fact

The question of immigration in France arose in 1945 in conjunction with the subjects of demography and manpower. To understand their importance as postwar concerns, one must appreciate the situation that existed at the end of World War II. France had been experiencing a declining birthrate for many years. As a result of World War I, she had lost 1,500,000 military and civilians and in the second conflict, 56The Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys estimated that in mid-1970 there were 1,370,000 persons of "New Commonwealth ethnic origin" living in Britain. See Race Relations in Britain, pp. 2-3.

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600,000 more.57 The problem was not simply one of num­ bers, either. The age distribution of the French people was radically skewed toward the older brackets. The conse­ quences of this, many felt, could be catastrophic, militarily, politically, and economically. A number of individuals be­ came spokesmen for the view that repopulation was not only the most vital aspect of French postwar recovery, but was the key to the resolution of her other difficulties. Alfred Sauvy, the eminent demographer, was a persuasive proponent of the idea that a program of permanent, large-scale immigration was a top priority. He felt that France needed at a minimum 5,290,000 permanent immigrants.58 The argument that the status of France as a great power depended on an increase in population found an ardent ad­ herent in Charles de Gaulle. In March 1945 he told the Consultative Assembly that France would pursue an active immigration policy designed to repopulate the territory.59 He and his disciple, Michel Debre, never flinched from this view, 57

Xavier Lannes, L'Immigration en France depuis 1945, p. 9. "Evaluation des besoins de !'immigration fran^aise," pp. 91-98. Sauvy and his associates at the prestigious Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques (INED) were a powerful and influential force in the making of policy after the war. Even though their suggestions were not always followed, they were attentively considered. The nuances of INED's position and its differences from that of the Com­ missariat General du Plan are outlined in "Les avantages demographiques et economiques de !'immigration," Notes Documentaires et Etudes No. 940, pp. 1-15. See also Jean Bourgeois, "La situation demographique," pp. 117-142. 59 Lannes, p. 10. A population policy has been defined as "a de­ liberate effort by a national government to influence the demographic variables: fertility, mortality, and migration" (Katherine and A.F.K. Organski, Population and World Power, p. 182). By these standards, France did have the apparatus of a true population policy. The code de la famille of 1939 had set up a series of family allowances de­ signed to reward couples for having children. The government's strict laws against abortion were not reformed until November 1974, and Michel Debre was in the front ranks of those fighting against the change. 58

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although his abrupt departure from the government ended any personal role in such a policy for a number of years. In 1962 de Gaulle still envisioned a country of "100 million Frenchmen" and Debre argued brilliantly in the National Assembly for a high priority demographic program.60 There were some clear early steps taken in the direction of a repopulation program and one observer has concluded that "our current policy, defined in a few months in 1945, re­ sponded at the beginning to a new and clearly affirmed con­ cern: repopulate."61 Interministerial committees were estab­ lished and a Ministry of Population created, though after de Gaulle's withdrawal from the scene Health was added to its responsibilities. A decision was even taken to encourage German prisoners of war to remain in France, but the public storm created when that proposal was aired forced its revo­ cation.62 The basic law which governed immigration policy through­ out the postwar period was passed on November 2, 1945. It was clearly intended to provide the framework within which the goals of those who were seeking to reshape the destiny of France through immigration could be achieved. The heart of the ordonnance was the section creating the National Immigration Office (ONI).63 This institution was given a monopoly over the recruitment of foreign labor into France. Significantly, it was under the direct supervision of the Minister of Labor rather than the Minister of Population and it enjoyed financial autonomy—its resources being de60 De Gaulle is quoted by Debre. See Assemblee nationale, Debats, 3-26 July 1963, pp. 4137-4146. 61 Menie Gregoire, "Politique franjaise de Timmigration," p. 574 (emphasis added). 82 See "Les problemes franfais," Conference de presse de M. Robert Pringe, for the rationale for accepting the Germans. See Lannes, p. 11, for an account of the factors leading to the interdic­ tion of German immigration until the summer of 1947. 63 For a description of the structure and operation of this body, see M. T. Pouillet and J. M. Bouttier, "L'accueil officiel," pp. 586-587; and Juliette Minces, Les travailleurs etrangers en France, ch. 6.

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rived from payments made by employers receiving workers. The ONI was not a policy-making body, though it did exer­ cise discretion over the conditions under which workers ar­ rived in France and also over the dispensation of individual cases. Whatever the original intent of the architects of ONI, the outcome was surely unexpected. Almost from the begin­ ning the organization was unable to maintain its monopoly on immigrant workers, as we shall see momentarily. Further­ more, the requirement that each entrant possess a work permit from the Ministry of Labor meant that immigration which did take place under the auspices of ONI would necessarily be tied to the domestic employment scene and not to long-range demographic considerations. This arrangement coincided with the preferences of another important segment of opinion in government circles. Part and parcel of the need for a larger population was the idea that economic growth in France could not take place without more manpower. The demographers were not unsympathetic to the requirements of the economy. Rather, they felt that greater population, even if it outstripped currently available employment, would in the long run stimulate the creation of new business activity. Those who favored a more conservative course, tying immigration to the jobs that were unfilled at the moment, represent the "manpower" perspective. The most influential spokesmen for this group were the men associated with the Commission on Manpower of the Commissariat General du Plan. They were in the process of drawing up the first economic blueprint for postwar France. For them the problem was simple in theory. In order to reach the produc­ tive objectives of the first plan, a certain number of laborers with various skills were required. There were a certain num­ ber of active individuals already living in France, more could be added through military conversion, job training, and the utilization of women and senior citizens. The rest had to be imported. The Plan's approach to immigration was realistic, empirical, and hard-nosed. Although the immediate purpose of immigration was to meet the current manpower needs of

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French industry, workers should not ordinarily come to stay, since if conditions were to change it would be necessary and convenient to send them home.64 The Plan's preference for temporary workers found sup­ port in the Ministry of Labor (held at that time by the Com­ munist Ambroise Croizat) which reflected the general pro­ tectionist position of the French labor movement. In 1947 Croizat negotiated a bilateral accord with Italy that laid out the conditions for Italian immigration to France.63 But other sources of workers were closed off. I have already discussed the decision to refuse German workers; in addition, pressure from the Communist Party (PCF) and the General Confed­ eration of Labor (CGT) kept the government from resorting to the use of individuals in displaced persons camps.66 In effect, the great promise that had been evident early in 19451946 of a comprehensive effort to repopulate France was dashed in a political struggle in which protectionist elements in the Ministry of Labor and the unions, and proponents of short-term economic considerations in the Commissariat General du Plan, aided by the bureaucratic morass created by ONI, succeeded in defeating the hopes of those who wished to see long-range commitment to a massive, perma­ nent immigration. But the victory of the planners was .not thoroughgoing. 64 The perspectives of the Plan are outlined in Jacques Doublet, "L'immigration des travailleurs etrangers permanents en France," p. 292; Lannes, pp. 14-15; and Commissariat General du Plan, Premier rapport de la Commission de la Main-d'oeuvre. The role of the Com­ missariat will be more fully explored in ch. 6. 85 Croizat went to extremes to assure the French working class that Italian immigrants would not take their own jobs: "French workers will understand the imperative reasons and will act accordingly to amicably receive the Italian workers. . . . Guard against all chauvinis­ tic inclinations; and do not lend yourself to the cause of those xeno­ phobic campaigns that our enemies are interested in propagating. Take account, first of all, of our poverty, to better recognize our necessities." See "L'accord de !'immigration Franco-Italien," Con­ ference de presse de M. Ambroise Croizat, p. 5. 66 Lannes, p. 10.

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They had desired a mechanical fit between employer needs and immigration. While totally free immigration normally mirrors employment opportunities (workers are unlikely to go to the expense and trouble of migrating to a country where hundreds of thousands of men are already unem­ ployed),67 the objectives of the Plan could best be met by strict regulation and control. This would allow the govern­ ment to recruit precisely the number of workers needed, to select only those qualified for the specific jobs available, and to maintain health and other checks on the newcomers. This was what ONI was intended to do, but it was not to be. On the contrary, over the years from 1947 to 1967, France slipped into a long period of haphazard and lackadaisical control of immigration that amounted to a laissez-faire ap­ proach. While the forms of control (ONI, bilateral accords) were maintained, in reality immigration was largely spon­ taneous, often clandestine, and usually carried out with the government's open collusion, or under its swiftly averted eye. The reasons that this state of affairs emerged are complex. The most immediate and obvious explanation is that the ONI system was simply incapable of processing sufficient numbers of workers. Furthermore, the fees charged em­ ployers for its services were a deterrent since they could be avoided by simply hiring the immigrant who appeared at one's personnel office. There is also evidence that certain firms did their own recruiting in order to avail themselves of "docile" workers.68 The political economy of immigration will be explored in chapters 6 and 7, but here one should note that "clandestine" or "spontaneous" immigrants, lacking work contracts and permits from the Ministry of Labor, were open to severe exploitation by employers who could fire them at will, pay them low wages, and politically intimidate them. The pool of labor created by this anarchic system bore many characteristics of an industrial reserve army and, as we 67 Pierre Bideberry, "Bilan de vingt annees d'immigration, 19461966," p. 11. 68 Michel Bosquet, "A quoi servent Ies immigres?" p. 79.

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shall see, its function in the French economy became a point of bitter contention among the left. Still, the immigrants themselves preferred to arrive by their own means rather than go through the official routes which could easily result in their exclusion, and certainly meant a long wait. Another cause of the unorganized character of French immigration seems to have been the great variety in both the origins of immigrant workers and in the legal frameworks under which they entered the country. As was the case with Britain, this heterogeneity was primarily the result of the colonial and imperial heritage, complicated in this instance by charter membership in the European community. Being short of manpower, and fearing that sufficient workers would not necessarily arrive on their own, French officials set out to find them and arrange their arrival through the means of bilateral agreements with countries with excess manpower. Accords were signed with Italy in 1946 and 1951, West Germany in 1950, Greece in 1954, Spain in 1961, Morocco, Mali, Mauritania, Tunisia, and Portugal in 1963, Senegal in 1964, and Yugoslavia and Turkey in 1965. Each of these agreements specified the number of workers to be admitted each year, the conditions of work guaranteed, and the re­ quirements for entry. Every nationality group had its own set of legal rights and duties and its own limits on numbers. This situation was further complicated by the evolution of the free circulation of workers within the European Com­ mon Market. The Treaty of Rome had foreseen a gradual lifting of the barriers to the migration of workers within member states. This was achieved two years ahead of sched­ ule on July 29, 1968.69 By that time, however, strictly EEC migration was much less important to France, since the num­ ber of Italian entrants had been declining for some years. 69The best source on free circulation of workers in the EEC is W. R. Bohning. See also Marcel Manville, "Le gouvernement fran5ais face au droit de la communaute europeene," pp. 157-161 for an analysis of French efforts to bypass EEC regulations regarding mi­ grant workers, from the viewpoint of the CGT.

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The new situation made France's bilateral agreements with Italy moot and, in theory at least, it posed a problem for planners trying to carefully estimate manpower needs and trends.70 Perhaps the most important factor in wrecking the man­ power planners' schemes was the problem of Algerian workers. The French approach to Algerian immigration from 1945 until 1962 was always affected by the need to enhance the possibility of maintaining the French position in North Africa. After Algerian independence, the effect of particular immigration decisions on Franco-Algerian cooperation was always weighed carefully. Until 1962, Algerians escaped immigration controls, being allowed to enter the metropole freely. In addition, the citizens of the French overseas de­ partments (Guinea, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Reunion) could enter the mainland by right. Finally, the French-speak­ ing African nations benefited from a very liberal scheme with respect to immigration. In summary, during the period from 1945 to 1967, French immigration was marked by its heterogeneity and by a pro­ fusion of special arrangements. French employers needed manpower and the government recruited it through the ONI and through a growing number of accords signed with laborexporting countries. To these relationships must be added the system of migration developing in the Common Market and the preferential treatment given the inhabitants of the over­ seas departments, Algeria, and the other parts of the former French Empire. This wide assortment of sources of immigra­ tion meant that coordination and planning were difficult and in fact were not achieved. It was not only in its growing complexity that the nature of immigration to France changed in the years after 1945. At first France drew from its European neighbors to fill its vacant jobs. But as these sources began to dry up, and as competition for workers with Germany and Switzerland be70 Bernard

58-59.

Granotier, Les travailleurs immigres en France, pp.

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came more intense, it was necessary to go farther afield. In this process non-European, nonwhite workers began to play a more and more important part in the French economy. For example, of the 30,171 foreign workers who entered France in 1946, 27,831 were Italians. The numbers coming from Italy fluctuated a great deal but finally leveled off around 1963 at about 13,000 per year. During those years, approxi­ mately 150,000 immigrants were arriving annually.71 These individuals were increasingly drawn from North Africa and from Portugal (See Table 2, chapter 2). The implications of the trend toward the use of non-European labor were recognized by French policy makers, as we shall see, but they were rather slow to act on them. In the first years after the war immigration was almost always considered in either strictly demographic or strictly economic terms, or some mixture of the two, but was rarely linked to questions of race.72 Foreign workers in France dur­ ing the first years of the migration tended to be familiar Europeans with white skins. Only with the marked alteration in the nature of the immigration did race become an im­ portant aspect of the question. Advocacy of controls, then, did not immediately brand, a group or individual as racist or reactionary. On the contrary, the drive toward the exten71

Bideberry, p. 14. The demographic school was not unaware of racial considera­ tions, however, and they occasionally worried about obtaining the proper mixtures of ethnic stock among immigrants. One of the most systematic presentations of this view can be found in Roger Delerme, "L'immigration noire en France." An early and rare political spokes­ man for racial criteria was the first Minister of Population, Robert Pringe. He warned against overreliance on Italian manpower and proposed that efforts be made to attract German immigrants: ". . . if we wish for a major immigration not to disrupt the ethnic equilib­ rium of the French people, it is indispensable that the meridional share should be complemented by a Nordic contribution . . . only Germany, with her enormous mass of more than 70 million inhabit­ ants concentrated in a territory singularly reduced, constitutes an important reserve of available population" ("Les problemes fran?ais," p. 4). 72

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sion of governmental control over immigration became a liberal, reformist position. This is almost the reverse of the situation that developed in Britain. The organization of im­ migration in France was viewed by its proponents as neces­ sary, ordinary, and eminently sensible. Controls were seen, not as a means of limiting immigration necessarily, but as a way of assuring that it would be orderly, sustained, and re­ lated to the particular needs of the economy (as well as, one must add, to the situation in the furnishing countries). Yet, controls were not effectively administered in France. Rather than there being government sponsored and planned immigration through the facilities of the ONI, the period from 1946 to 1967 can be characterized as one in which there was at least an unofficial tolerance and even encour­ agement of "spontaneous" immigration. This was carried out primarily by individual firms who either actively recruited workers abroad or hired them when they appeared at their plants. It was also the work of illegal and unscrupulous traders and smugglers who collected outrageous fees from unsuspecting workers for transportation to France. The government openly recognized this state of affairs, and tacitly encouraged it, by providing almost free access for illegal or spontaneous immigrants to a process called "regularization." Under this procedure, immigrants who had arrived as tourists, or who had crossed the border illegally, but who had subse­ quently found work, could receive work papers from the government. There was a possibility, of course, that the indi­ vidual might be sent home for health or other reasons, but in fact thousands had their situations regularized over the years (Table 10). The process reached its peak in 1968 when over 80 per cent of the introductions that year were regularized and only 18 per cent entered through the official channels. It is an almost inevitable consequence of a process of unorganized immigration that the social conditions of the immigrants will be inadequate and will deteriorate. Unable to predict how many workers will arrive during a particular period, where they will be coming from, or where they will

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Table 10 Per Cent of Immigrants Regularized, 1948-1972 Year

ONl

1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958

74 78 52 66 60 52 64 70 72 50 55

Regularized

Year

ONl

26 22 48 34 40 48 36 30 28 50 45

1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1968 1971 1972

47 47 54 52 39 31 21 23 18 40 54

Regularized 53 53 46 48 61 69 79 77 82 60 44

SOURCES: Bideberry, p. 15; Conseil National du Patronat Franfais, Notes et Arguments 40 (December 1973).

settle, the government cannot provide for their transition to life in France. Those immigrants who arrive on their own must find housing and jobs before they are eligible for per­ mits to stay. They are, in effect, excluded temporarily from government housing and the formal institutions of aid to immigrants. The consequence of the chaotic nature of immigration to France after 1945 was the development of the most repre­ hensible social conditions of any group of workers in Europe. Unable to secure adequate shelter at a price they could pay, the migrants, often with their families, congregated in and around the large industrial centers, throwing up shanty towns built of tin cans and cardboard (bidonvilles). Here they lived in unbelievable squalor, without plumbing, heat, or medical care. Others sought shelter in cellars and attics. Exa­ cerbating the problem was the fact that in addition to the large numbers who entered France as tourists and became regularized, an undetermined number entered the country illegally and were never officially "counted" by the govern­ ment. Fearing that they would be sent home, or simply una-

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ware that regularization was a real option, these clandestins led a harried existence, sleeping wherever they could, and often staying one step ahead of the police.73 The living conditions of migrants, and especially their housing or lack of it, became the most controversial and scandalous aspect of the immigration issue. Discussion over numbers, the nature of the work performed, even racial ten­ sions paled beside the sustained criticism of the ghastly slums that surrounded the cities of France. But housing was only the most visible and dramatic manifestation of a more serious and complex problem. The French response to these chal­ lenges was too meager and half-hearted to be effective, yet it was also imaginative and innovative. The predominant mode of the government's social policy has been the creation of a new, specialized organization to work in a particular area—housing, job training, language education, etc. These bodies are normally mixed enterprises, being only semipublic, and they often have autonomous sources of revenues. The prototypical immigrant welfare institution is the Social Action Fund (FAS) which was first established in 1958 with re­ sponsibility only for Algerian workers in France, but has gradually had its duties expanded until they encompass all minorities with special problems.74 73 The great bulk of literature on immigrants in France has been devoted to descriptions of their living conditions. A few of the more useful works are Minces, pp. 356-463; Granotier, pp. 94-143; Paulette and Pierre Calame, Les travailleurs etrangers en France, pp. 149-198; Monique Hervo and Marie-Ange Charras, Bidonvilles; Le logement des migrants. 74 A good description of FAS may be found in Minces, pp. 152155. See also "L'action sociale en faveur des travailleurs Musulmans Alge'riens en metropole et de Ieur famille"; and Ministere du Travail, de L'Emploi et de la Population, "Le Fonds d'Action Sociale pour Ies travailleurs migrants—Dix ans au service des etrangers et des mi­ grants." Other mixed associations dealing with migrants include: Sonacotrol—a company set up by the state in 1957 with the govern­ ment owning 55 per cent of the shares, its sole object is to build housing for immigrants. Cetrafa—a housing enterprise similar to Sonacotrol but smaller in scope.

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French welfare policy toward migrants is characterized by the assumption that the special problems of immigrants require separate ameliorative measures outside the normal services available to the French citizen. This has been true even in the important field of housing, where acute shortages of moderately priced public housing have not prevented the government from setting aside a certain proportion of all new units for immigrants. The British worry over reverse discrimination would be an exotic idea in France. If the years from 1945 to 1967 were characterized by spontaneous immigration and several fledgling but inadequate attempts to correct the social problems affecting immigrants, they were also increasingly dominated by the colonial ques­ tion. Especially as the future of Algeria loomed over the French horizon, the problem of immigration, like the survival of the regime itself, became subsidiary to the deadly conflict between the partisans of Algerie frangaise and the FLN. In policy terms, the effect of the Algerian conflict was increas­ ingly to guide French decisions on the entry of Algerian workers by their supposed effect on the outcome of the de­ colonization struggle. Free entry to France was to accomplish several goals: (1) demonstrate that France considered Al­ gerian Muslims as equal French citizens, (2) illustrate the economic benefits to be derived from union, and (3) pro­ liferate the personal and economic ties that bound the two peoples together. French social policy toward Algerians in the metropole, furthermore, was seen as an aspect of colonial policy—a generous welfare approach at home being designed to foster the cause of French Algeria across the Mediter­ ranean. The Algerian Deputy, Ahmed Djebbour, explicitly expressed this view in the National Assembly in 1961. Argu­ ing that a victory over the FLN would be empty unless the French government struck a chord in the hearts of the Mus­ lims, he cautioned that "this postulate should be taken into account each time a measure is taken with respect to our fellow citizens from Algeria." He then went on to offer a

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number of specific suggestions for ameliorating the living conditions of Algerians living in France.75 Djebbour's entreaties went largely unheeded, however. In fact, during the protracted military conflict in Algeria, the situation of Muslim workers in France, far from being con­ sciously and calculatedly improved by the government, be­ came more and more precarious. The causes of this grave deterioration are not difficult to imagine. What is perhaps more striking is the fact that the government could continue to practice unrestricted entry toward a people, with one seg­ ment of which it was at war. This is all the more remarkable when one considers the widespread terrorism that was carried out by the FLN in France.76 The misfortune of the Algerian workers was that they could not readily be distinguished from FLN agents, and as the crisis deepened, the French police and vigilante groups made less and less effort in this regard. The Minister of the Interior, Roger Frey, admitted as much in the Assembly in 1961 when he explained that in order to protect "honest" French Muslims and to be able to distinguish them from criminals, it had been necessary to ban the former from the streets during late night hours and close many of the cafes they habituated.77 Perhaps the most subtle effect of the Algerian war was that it provided an extremely negative context within which the 75 Assemblee nationale, Debats, 13 October 1961, pp. 2556-2557. See also 9 June 1959, p. 836. 7 6 I do not mean to suggest that the French were somehow altru­ istic or noble in this regard. The motivation for the policy, besides the effect it might have on the outcome of the independence struggle, was the necessity of satisfying French manpower demands and of providing a safety valve for the massive unemployment in Algeria. In addition, it is clear that any other policy would have deprived the large number of French colons in Algeria the opportunity and right to return to the metropole. A discriminatory policy which allowed French, but not Muslim, residents to enter would have made a mockery of French claims to represent the universal political prin­ ciples of justice and equality in the conflict with the FLN. 77 Assemblee nationale, Debats, 13 October 1961, p. 2552.

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plight of Algerian workers in France was discussed publicly for the first time. It was during the years 1958-1962 that a number of Deputies in the National Assembly, through par­ liamentary questions and interventions, succeeded in produc­ ing the first debate on the problems of foreign workers.78 These individuals, regardless of their motives, which were ad­ mittedly mixed, undeniably were sympathetic to the foreigners and wanted to see immediate steps taken to eliminate the worst abuses of the migrant labor system. But the bad feeling that had been generated by the war and compounded by the repatriation of over a million colons who were usually bitterly hostile toward Algerians,79 dealt a death blow to their efforts. When Algerian independence was finally negotiated at Evian in 1962, it was decided to continue to allow Algerians to enter France freely so long as they possessed a valid identity card. In order to work in France, Algerians were supposed to employ the offices of ONAMO, an agency created by the Evian Agreements which had its base in Algeria and whose object was the recruitment of workers to go to France. In fact, most Algerians wishing to work in France entered as tourists and looked for work on their own. After only two years, however, France was unwilling to con­ tinue the arrangement that allowed Algerians to come at will. 78 The plight of Algerian workers in France was first raised in the National Assembly through the interventions, primarily of Marcelle Devaud, in connection with debate over the budget. See Debats, 9 June 1959, pp. 816-818; 20 November 1959, pp. 2702-2703; 27 Oc­ tober 1960, pp. 2859-2860. See also the interventions of Eugene Claudius-Petit, 10 June 1959, p. 864; Sadek Khorsi, 23 April 1960, p. 419; and Marc Lauriol, 29 June 1960, p. 1584. 79 There was a remarkable difference in the generosity of the pro­ visions made for the colons who returned to France during and after the Algerian war and those made for immigrant workers. For an outline of the program for the former see Claude Zarka, "Policies Promoting Labour Mobility," pp. 512-515. For Parliamentary discus­ sion of the fate of the colons, see Assemblee nationale, Debats, 14 January 1963, pp. 785-779; 11 May 1962, pp. 1060-1077; 26 October 1963, pp. 5883-5884; for a brilliant report on the attitudes and prob­ lems of the colons, see Jane Kramer, "Les Pieds Noirs."

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As Alain Peyrefitte, speaking for the Council of Ministers, put it: "There is a certain disorder in the arrival in France of Algerians, who, under the pretext of coming to look for work, come, but do not work. It is necessary to organize this through a contract system."80 The result was the April 10, 1964, Franco-Algerian Accord which created the framework for rather strict limitation of Algerian immigration. The Minister of Labor, Grandval, was eager to point out that "Algerian immigration is not suspended. It is simply regu­ larized."81 But the effect was to reduce the annual influx that could take place legally. Health cards would now be manda­ tory, and the numbers to be admitted would be set trimesterally by the two governments after a consideration of the economic situation in both countries.82 The Franco-Algerian Accord was probably the most im­ portant post-Evian development on the immigration front until 1968, although similar agreements were reached with Mali and Mauritania in 1963, with Senegal in 1964, and with Yugoslavia and Turkey in 1965. The Social Action Fund was expanded in its scope in 1966, being henceforth responsible for the welfare of all foreign workers, gypsies, and other dis­ possessed minorities. In May 1966 a major governmental reorganization took place with the creation of the Directorate of Population and Migrations within the Ministry of Social Affairs. This represented the first attempt by the bureaucracy to deal with the problems of immigration on something more than an ad hoc basis. Previously, the principal individual responsible for immigration programs had been a special officer delegated by the Minister of Social Affairs to be in charge of social action for immigrants. There were, then, a few halting steps taken to deal with the domestic problems of immigrants and there was more effort in the way of establishing some measure of control over the movement of workers in and out of France. But, on the whole, as I said earlier, the years until 1968 must be 80 Le

Monde, 9 April 1964. 11 April 1964.

82 Ibid.,

81

Ibid., 13 April 1964.

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understood as a period of drift when the government was unwilling to effectively master immigration. Unable to agree on the desirability of a bold program of repopulation, the government pursued a crude policy of temporary manpower recruitment. Although important government officials were hesitant to discuss the subject of immigration in public, the rare instances when they did indicate the rationale behind French policy. As early as September 1963, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou defended recourse to foreign labor as a means to create "a certain detente in the labor market and to absorb social pressure."83 Three years later, M. Jeanneney, a member of Pompidou's Cabinet, argued along the same lines when he said that clandestine immigration, while it cer­ tainly had some regrettable side-effects, might be "neces­ sary, because without the clandestine workers, we might lack the manpower we need."84 Their comments, along with the standard government line that however distasteful it might be immigration was mandatory for French economic health and therefore should be tolerated, indicate the general ap­ proach of the government in this interval. Relatively uncon­ trolled immigration was beneficial economically (for a num­ ber of reasons to be treated in chapter 6), and those benefits would be reduced if one moved to a more rigidly controlled system. It is clear, too, that while efforts were taken on behalf of the migrants, their great misery was a price France was willing to pay in the short term. After all, the frank rationale used to justify migration was that foreigners were willing to do the filthy, demeaning, unremunerative work that the French worker was no longer willing to do.85 How the gov83

84 Quoted in Minces, p. 136. Quoted in Minces, p. 37. discussion of political problems probably always becomes riddled with a number of standard cliche's and pat formulas. The no­ tion that the "foreigners come to do the work the French will no longer do" was one of the most common generalizations of this type. While it contains more than a kernel of truth, its objective purpose— to persuade the French to tolerate the newcomers for their own good —was probably outweighed by its function in stultifying a rigorous examination of a situation in which vital jobs could not attract work85 Public

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ernment was led to abandon this position and press for more and more regulation of the immigration process is the story to be told in the next section. 1968-1975—Toward a Selective Policy The explosion of anger and frustration which occurred in May-June 1968 and brought the government of Charles de Gaulle to the brink of resignation helped bring about a de­ cided shift in French immigration policy. The immediate effect of the wave of protests and demonstrations was to in­ volve thousands of foreign workers in French politics whether they wished to be or not. In the turmoil of factory closings, marches, and violence, many immigrants were swept up in the excitement and joined the protest. Other politically con­ scious immigrants seized the opportunity to demonstrate their solidarity with French workers. On the whole, though, it seems that most of the immigrants who were arrested during the events were innocent victims of a situation they could not control. The government reaction to the involvement of foreigners in domestic politics was swift and brutal. Le Monde reported on June 15 that in the five days previous, 147 foreigners had been "transported to the frontier of their choice."86 The expulsions were taken under the summary power of the Minister of the Interior to remove without right of appeal any foreigner whose presence created an "emer­ gency" for the public security. An article in the Review of ers. The idea that these jobs could be made more attractive by im­ proving conditions or pay, or that in the absence of other opportuni­ ties, the French undoubtedly would accept such positions was almost never expressed. A rare instance of an individual cutting through the fog can be found in these remarks by Edouard Bonnefous: "It is not correct to say that there are Frenchmen who do not wish to under­ take certain jobs. It is a question of price. . . . If one does not wish to pay what one should for certain trades that the French don't wish to follow, if one does not wish to over-compensate those trades, one will not have the manpower. But if one decides to over-compensate them, one will find it." See "Les problemes poses par !'immigration 6trang£re en France," p. 260. 86Le Monde, 15 June 1968.

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the International Commission of Jurists claimed that "the deportations ordered after the events of May 1968 took on the character of a collective expulsion."87 Opponents of the government claimed that it had taken particular care to expel any foreigners who had been critical of the regime or active in welfare work with immigrants. There can be no doubt that the use of expulsions was heavy-handed and repressive and even though those affected were more often students than workers it is evident that the government recognized fully for the first time the potential danger of a large, disfranchised, unassimilated, and hostile alien proletariat of three million people in the heart of France.88 While the frantic expulsions were the first manifestation of this awareness, they were not the last. On July 29 a minis­ terial circulaire was issued by the Ministry of Social Affairs which sought to close the gap between spontaneous and con­ trolled immigration. Henceforth, a residence permit (carte de sejour) could be refused an immigrant who had entered France on his own means if the job he sought was on a list of positions for which there was already an overabundance of workers. Furthermore, the regularization of manual and semiskilled workers would be prohibited. This measure was meant to revitalize the role of the ONI, as were the moves made by the Minister of Social Affairs in a meeting of EEC officials in Brussels in July. He attained an enlarged role for ONI in the processing of EEC migrants. On July 1, France unilaterally limited to 1,000 per month the number of Algerians who could enter the country to work. While such action was strictly legal under the 1964 Accord, it deeply troubled the government in Algiers. The 1964 agreement had set a goal of 50,000 immigrants per year, and entries had been running at about 3,000 per month, 87 Review of the International Commission of Jurists 3 (September 1969), reprinted in Migration Today 13 (Fall 1969). 88 For the controversial Interior Minister's views on the threat foreign workers pose for the "public order," see L'Ordre public et Ies groupes revolutionnaires, pp. 37-38, 54-55.

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so the new figures were a drastic reduction.89 By December of the same year, France had negotiated a new accord which set a goal of 35,000 workers, an apparent compromise figure with the Algerian Foreign Minister Bouteflika, who had de­ sired a target of 50,000.90 In 1969 several important statements were released which attempted to define a new immigration policy for France. The most important was that presented to the Social and Eco­ nomic Council by M. Corentin Calvez. The report, which was adopted by the council on February 26, set out in some detail the argument that has become the basis of contempo­ rary French policy. Calvez made several important points. The first was that France must have a systematic, coordi­ nated, well-thought-out policy, rather than the improvised, laissez-faire approach that had prevailed since 1945. Second, immigration must be recognized as an issue of the first order of priority. This was not only because there were so many foreigners living in France (Calvez estimated 3,100,000 or 6 per cent of the total population) but because they made such a vital contribution to the economy. Third, the nature of the immigration had changed over the years—fewer Europeans were coming, and they had been replaced by nonEuropeans, especially North Africans. The arrival of these persons was causing social problems because they were not usually skilled workers and they were not easily assimilated. These arguments led the council to endorse a selective 89Le Monde, 18 June 1968. Although the action occurred after the May Days (it was announced June 18) and fits a pattern of post-May developments as I shall show, it must be pointed out that the step was also the result of other factors. Le Monde considered it both a short-term response to increased unemployment occasioned by the crisis and a reprisal against Algeria for a wave of recent nationaliza­ tions of French-owned firms. The Algerian government accepted the latter explanation. President Boumediene, while admitting that France had the right under the 1964 Accord to limit Algerian entry, criticized her "unilateral" action and pointed out that Algeria had been trying to change the terms of the Accord for four years. Le Monde, 21 June 1968. 90 See Granotier, p. 175.

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policy. Foreseeing that by the year 2000 there would be 2,500,000 Algerians in France, constituting an "unassimilable island," the report concludes: It seems desirable, therefore, more and more to give to the influx of non-European origin, and principally to the current from the Maghreb, the character of a temporary immigration for work, organized in the manner of a rapid process of introduction which would be linked as much as possible to the need for labor of the business sectors concerned and in cooperation with the country of origin.91 Those elements which were assimilable—that is, Europeans —would be encouraged to become French citizens. They would be aided in this process because the scarce resources that had been in the past expended on the hopeless task of adapting Arabs would now be available for their use. The council, in approving the report and anticipating an obvious criticism, argued: The preference given to temporary manpower entries, more adapted to needs, and the subordination of the ar­ rival of families to the real possibilities of integration and reception, far from justifying a reproach of discrimination are on the contrary the guarantee of the profoundly hu­ mane preoccupation of an immigration policy.92 Other members of the government sounded a similar note. That same month, Mile. Dienesch, the Secretary of State for Social Affairs, argued that the necessary prerequisite for France's satisfactorily handling the domestic needs of mi­ grants was establishing a firm control over the nature and rate of the influx.93 In June Maurice Schumann, Minister of Social Affairs, delivered a major policy speech which fol91Calvez,

"Le probleme des travailleurs etrangers," p. 315. adopte par Ie Conseil Economique et Social au Cours de sa Seance du 26 Fevrier 1969," p. 322. 93 Le Monde, 27 February 1969. 92 "Avis

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lowed the Calvez document in most particulars, though it stopped short of calling for an outright policy of selection based on race or.culture. He noted that "a phenomenon that we have tended to consider as marginal has progressively ceased to be so." He remarked that the growth of the foreign population was ten times faster than that of the French population. Commenting that the risk of maintaining the present course was too great, he felt that a new immigration policy was mandatory. The basis of Trench policy, he argued, would be the idea that free circulation of people makes sense only as the human part of a coordinated policy of economic development undertaken between many countries. This meant, he concluded, that large-scale immigration from countries not on the same level of economic development as France must be greatly reduced. French policy would (1) reinvigorate the ONI, (2) lead to cooperative agreements with Algeria to control the movement from that country, and (3) amplify its social efforts through FAS.94 On paper, at least, France had developed a plan for the careful and systematic control of immigration. The easy re­ course to Algerian labor would be sharply curtailed and only persons from developed or European countries would be encouraged or allowed to settle permanently. The others would be viewed strictly as temporary manpower to be relied upon when the economy of France (as well as the sending country) demanded it, and to be hurried back home when the situation changed. What were the forces which had brought about this dramatic change in purpose? The Days of May were a precipitating factor, as I have argued, but the ideas expressed by Calvez and Schumann had been percolating through the bureaucracy for some time.95 They seem to have 94 Reprinted

as "La politique franjaise (!'immigration," pp. 933-940. this regard the contribution of Michel Massenet must be recognized. He has held a variety of governmental posts dealing with immigrants, and was the most influential single force in the evolution of the policy enunciated by Schumann. His ideas have been analyzed in detail in Calame and Calame, pp. 17-25. 95 In

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arisen as a result of those changes in the nature of immigra­ tion toward which Schumann and Calvez themselves pointed. They seem also to have reflected a change in the economic situation in France. Although these problems will be treated in chapter 6,1 can point out here that the severe shortages of manpower that had characterized the early postwar period were easing. Furthermore, some of the economic disadvan­ tages of migrant labor such as the ability it gave certain em­ ployers to forgo reorganization, relocation, and moderniza­ tion were becoming more evident. By 1968, too, it seems that France felt able to risk the displeasure of its former colonial possessions since they had been irrevocably lost and often behaved, it must have seemed, like ungrateful children. Since Algeria was no longer to be an open field on which French business could play, the pretense that the average Frenchman saw no difference between himself and a Muslim could be dropped. Finally, the social tensions that were the fruit of the policy of "laissez-passez," as Schumann termed it, were becoming more and more difficult to ignore. The organized labor move­ ment had not usefully developed the immigration issue before 1964. While periodic statements of solidarity were made, little effort was expended to organize, politicize, or otherwise exploit the presence of workers in an extremely deprived situation. In 1964, however, the CGT held a national confer­ ence on the situation of Algerian workers. Of the 376 dele­ gates, 234 were Algerian, the rest French. The conference agreed to wage a campaign for complete social equality for all foreign workers. A year earlier, in April 1963, the Politi­ cal Bureau of the Communist Party had heard a report from Georges Marchais which admitted that the party had over­ looked the importance of foreign workers to the economy and their potential role in the class struggle. He outlined a skeletal program for the organization of commissions on immigration throughout the federal structure of the party.96 There was growing indication, then, that the parties and 96 Le

Monde, 23 April 1963.

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unions of the left were at long last ready to use the plight of foreign workers as an instrument of political struggle.97 Parallel to these developments among the institutionalized parties of the left, there was an increasing wave of protest and violence against the immigrants, and especially the Al­ gerians, by the paramilitary movements of the extreme right. All of these developments combined to prod the government toward a redefinition of its approach. Having developed a new set of principles to guide their actions, however, the government still hesitated to put them into effect. Whether it felt that the laws and arrangements it had made by 1969 were sufficient to enact the new pro­ gram, or whether it quickly fell back into the old habit of marking time, the next two years witnessed a further deteri­ oration in the domestic situation. In January 1970, at Aubervilliers north of Paris, five African workers were asphyxiated while sleeping in a five-room building they shared with fortyfive other foreigners. The landlord who reaped a bonanza monthly rent from this property had neglected to pay the utilities bill for some months and the electricity had been cut off. In the subfreezing winter night the hapless tenants had built a makeshift fire of wood and charcoal and had died from the poisonous fumes. Dramatic and tragic events having the power to concen­ trate the mind more readily than mountains of statistics, the deaths created a tremendous scandal. Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Pompidou's Prime Minister, visited the scene soon after and inspected the living conditions of the rest of the inhabi­ tants of the area. Visibly shaken by the sordid conditions in which thousands of foreigners were living only a few miles from the Champs Elysee, he vowed 97 In at least a minor way the opposition offered an alternative to the policy of selection. This was embodied in the demand for a special "status" for immigrant workers guaranteeing the same rights and duties for all workers. This proposal was compatible with a policy of controlled immigration, but based on economic rather than racial criteria. See Gilles Verbunt, "Le 'Statut' des travailleurs immigres en France," pp. 7-14.

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to take measures as of tomorrow, and I mean as of to­ morrow, to begin the elimination of these living units. . . . I estimate that from now to the end of the year we will have done away with more than half of the unacceptable units: according to our plan, we should be done with this situation by the end of 1971.98 He eventually set up a permanent Interministerial Group for the Resorption of Slum Housing (GIP) and sponsored the Vivien Act which gave the government expanded powers to buy land in order to take over bidonvilles. It was quickly apparent, however, that Chaban-Delmas' bold statements on the eradication of bidonvilles could not be carried through. One slum was removed only to be re­ placed by another. Residents uprooted by the bulldozers were effectively left homeless. Furthermore, throughout 1970-1971 the scale of racial protest rapidly increased. Bands of "gauchistes" and "Maos" staged commando-type raids on government offices dealing with foreign workers. The headquarters of the patronat (CNPF) was occupied and the subsequent trial of one of the protestors was turned into a political forum on the situation of immigrants through the testimony of Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Clavel, and Jean Genet, among others. The migrants themselves became more vocal and began to engage in what became their most com­ mon political tactic—the hunger strike. The government re­ sorted more and more to the power of expulsion and the number of individual racial incidents seemed to increase." In January and February 1972, the government of 98 For details of the Aubervilliers tragedy and its aftermath, see Le Monde, 3-30 January 1970. For the quotations from ChabanDelmas, Le Monde, 13 February 1975. 09 For examples of the activities of the extreme left, primarily those of the members of the Maoist "Proletarian Left," see Le Monde, 22-23 February 1975. For an account of the trial of Roland Castro, one of the participants in the occupation of the patronat's headquarters in Paris, see Le Monde, 25 February 1975. For an analysis of the political tactics of migrants, refer to Manuel Castells, "Immigrant Workers and Class Struggles in Advanced Capitalism."

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Georges Pompidou took new steps to implement the policy that had been enunciated in 1969. Two circulaires were is­ sued from the Ministries of the Interior and Labor. The Marcellin and Fontanet circulaires, as they are called after the individuals who held the two posts at that time, sought to coordinate the issuance of residence and work permits. Both were put in the hands of the Prefecture of Police under the Ministry of the Interior. All persons who had entered France illegally or under false pretenses could have their situation regularized but would need a work contract for one year and proof that they possessed arrangements for "de­ cent" housing. Both residence and work permits would be renewable on the same date and the police could refuse to extend them "for reasons having little to do with either pub­ lic order or fluctuations in the labor market."100 Finally, severe measures would be taken to end any further clandes­ tine immigration. The ostensible purpose of the FontanetMarcellin circulaires was to ensure that migrants had ade­ quate housing and to simplify administrative procedures. Its actual effect was to greatly exacerbate the insecurity of mi­ grant laborers.101 It placed the burden for finding suitable housing on the workers themselves and created a situation in which many were afraid to change either their housing or job during the year for fear of losing their approved status. The upshot of the new measures was a decided shift to a temporary, contract-labor system.102 These two decrees set off an intense protest all over France. The dissatisfaction was expressed in numerous hun­ ger strikes undertaken by individuals who demanded that their situations be regularized. The unions and the parties of the left increasingly criticized the government and joined the immigrants in their campaign. In January 1973 the CGT and CFDT issued a joint communique calling for the rescinding of Fontanet and the regularization of foreign workers in 100

Le Monde, 8 September 1973. Michel Bosquet; Le Monde, 8 September 1973. 102Joyce Edmond-Smith, "France's New Law," p. 51.

101

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France before there was any new immigration.103 The Fontanet circulaire became a rallying point around which those groups which were critical of government policy could or­ ganize. It was a clear, substantial statement of intent and provided the kind of target that the ambiguous and hap­ hazard approach of the past had not offered. Opposition to Fontanet was not defused by several other events in 1972 that could be seen as marginally improving the status of mi­ grants. In July the National Assembly passed antidiscrimination legislation. While the Act was certainly a response to the deepening racial crisis in France, it cannot be viewed as a central component of government policy. In fact it emerged from a separate stream of politics, being the project of in­ dividual deputies and organizations devoted to the promo­ tion of racial justice. The Act updated the only existing antidiscrimination legislation—the law of 1939—which was aimed at propaganda and press campaigns only. The gov­ ernment had continually reiterated its opinion that this was the only legal protection racial minorities required. The new law prohibited acts of incitement to racial hatred and dis­ crimination based on race or nationality, making them pun­ ishable by imprisonment and fine. It made no provision for the conciliation of complaints and apparently had not been the product of any study of the British or American ex­ perience in combating racial discrimination.104 With opposition to the Fontanet circulaire showing no signs of abating, it looked as if the government's resolve to "master" immigration might be weakening. In June 1973, M. Gorse, the new Minister of Labor, announced that he was taking measures to humanize the circulaire. These in103

Minces, p. 143. For discussions of the circumstances surrounding the Act, see Edmond-Smith, p. 304; and Minces, ch. 16. For a discussion of the history of the approach of French law to the problems of minority discrimination, see Fred Hermantin, "De l'injure et de la diffamation raciste—Etude critique du droit positif francais," pp. 53-71. 104

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eluded a provision that all foreigners entering France before June 1, who were irregular, could normalize their situation before September 30. If they were presently working, they could get a work card and work contract for six months. All the other workers remained under Fontanet. Gorse also reported that the Minister of the Interior would give to all foreign workers, upon the expiration of their work contracts, a supplementary residence permit of three months' duration to allow them to look for new jobs. The Minister warned, however, that from October 1, all irregular workers would be dealt with severely and that the frontiers were to be firmly closed to clandestine migration.105 But it was in June, too, that the neo-fascist New Order launched its campaign against uncontrolled immigration. As tensions mounted during the summer, the situation became ripe for a massive outburst of racial violence, which oc­ curred in August and September and resulted in the deaths of numerous persons. This was the most serious episode of racial violence in postwar France. It precipitated the sus­ pension by the Algerian government of all further emigra­ tion to France in 1973. While this action was taken to com­ municate to Paris the gravity with which Algiers viewed the persecution of their nationals, it also gave France a breath­ ing spell. It removed from them the onus of halting any new Algerian immigration—a step the administration was surely considering but which, in the circumstances, would have looked like a cowardly attempt to punish the victim rather than the aggressor. Reacting to the crisis, M. Gorse an­ nounced that the September 30 deadline for the full imple­ mentation of Fontanet would be extended one month. Major new developments on immigration were not to oc­ cur until the following summer. In April 1974 President Pompidou died and new elections were set. Despite the great turmoil that had existed the previous fall, immigration did not appear to be much of an issue in the election. The ques­ tions of communist participation in the government, the fu105 Le

Monde, 8 September 1973.

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ture of Gaullism, and the state of the economy swamped other considerations. The former Finance Minister Giscard d'Estaing produced an election program which contained only a few glittering generalities about improving the living conditions of immigrants, but said nothing substantial about the principles that would guide his policy. The Joint Pro­ gram of Government which had been signed by the members of the Union of the Left was a bold and comprehensive plan for moving the first step toward creating socialism in France, but remarkably it mentioned foreign workers only in passing, promising that they would benefit from all the rights of French workers.106 In his campaign statements on the sub­ ject, the United Left's candidate, Francois Mitterrand, dis­ tinguished short- and medium-term proposals. The former included emergency provisions to improve the living circum­ stances of foreign workers. The latter entailed "a vast policy of revision of pay, amelioration of working conditions, phased reduction of working hours, advancement of the re­ tirement age for workers performing the most menial tasks, and the accelerated automation of repetitive tasks; measures which, themselves, will limit immigration."107 After his narrow victory, Giscard d'Estaing moved quickly and, given his silence on the problem during the campaign, surprisingly to make his mark on immigration policy. His initial step was to announce the appointment of the first Secretary of State for Immigration, M. Postel-Vinay. Then, on July 3, 1974, the government announced that it was temporarily suspending all further immigration until October (except, of course, that coming from the EEC) in order to give itself time to prepare new measures to improve the situation of those already in France and extend their union rights. Postel-Vinay, whom Le Monde credited with being the real power behind the moves, demanded that 15,000 supplementary lodgings be built in addition to the proportion 106 Programme commun de gouvernement du parti communiste francais et du parti socialiste, pp. 57-58. 107 Le Monde, 19-20 May 1974.

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of low-cost public housing being reserved for immigrants. The cost of this plan was put at one billion francs. In addi­ tion, greater efforts were to be undertaken to halt clandes­ tine entry, including stiff penalties for individuals discov­ ered "trafficking" in men and employers using illegal labor.108 Postel-Vinay abruptly resigned, however, and was re­ placed by Paul Dijoud, a young member of the President's party. He promptly set about pursuing his predecessor's policies. On October 9 the government adopted a 25-point program relating to the reception and training of immigrants. It included a plan requiring employers to pay for the import­ ed labor they hired. It proposed that a charge of 3,000 francs be assessed, beginning in the spring of 1975, on any employer who wished to bring a semiskilled worker into the country. This sum would provide for a month's pay while the individual was adapted to his new environment but not yet working. The new Secretary of State also extended in­ definitely the suspension of new immigration (with a few minor exceptions). His goal, he announced, was to stabilize the foreign population at its current level, then well over three million.109 A major aspect of the new approach to im­ migration was its emphasis on national-local cooperation. In the past, French mayors had been left to their own de­ vices in responding to the social and economic problems which massive concentrations of foreign workers brought about. Dijoud began visiting cities like Grenoble and Lille which had major migrant communities to prepare them for the new alliance. He ordered all Prefects to assign a close collaborator to be in charge of immigration problems in their jurisdictions and to establish working groups on hous­ ing, reception, employment, and training. In addition, he went on national television to sell his program to the public and to reassure them that the situation was in hand.110 To underline this new commitment, on February 28 i°8 Le Monde, 5 July 1974. io9 L'Express, 21-27 October 1974. no L'Express, 25 November-I December 1974.

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President Giscard d'Estaing went to Marseilles with Dijoud and the city's Socialist Mayor, Gaston Deferre, in a carefully orchestrated visit. He talked with many migrants in their homes and afterward held a press conference in which he said that the new program of urban cooperation would be modeled after that being developed in Marseilles. He went on to declare that "immigrant workers, being a part of our national productive community, should have in the French society that I am trying to organize a place which will be at once dignified, humane, and equitable."111 This statement, made on the eve of the President's visit to Algeria, was an effort to convince that country that "the government is preoccupied with the fate of immigrant work­ ers in France and particularly with their conditions of life, of housing, and of work."112 Taken together with other com­ ments he had made since assuming office, the visit represented the first serious attempt by a French political leader to exert a decisive influence on public opinion and to take a principled stand against racism.113 Whether the new social programs will be sufficient remains to be seen. What seems clear is that a period in the history of French immigration has come to an end. The great wave of foreigners who have served French industry since 1945 has receded, temporarily at least. The government seems intent on holding the line and by raising the price of immigration forcing the patronat to make some hard decisions regarding alternatives to foreign labor. Al­ though the onslaught of inflation, recession, and unemploy­ ment has surely pushed the government along this path, in the process it has conceded that the assimilative capacity of la plus grande France has its limits. 111

Le Monde, 1 March 1975. i" Ibid. 113 See ibid, for a summary of all his public statements on the sub­ ject from May 1974.

CHAPTER 4

Elites, Consensus, and the Depoliticization of Race

ONE of the most problematic questions which the presence of a non-European minority posed was whether or not the racial aspects of the immigration phenomenon could or would be integrated into the mix of ideas, issues, and social cleavages that constituted the working materials of French and British politicians and political parties. And, if appeals for support and programs based on racial criteria were not to be rejected out of hand as unthinkable, what were to be the guidelines for those who wished to work on either side of the issue? One aspect of the process by which race and immigra­ tion were gradually perceived and taken over by the political elite was the necessity of getting them on the political agenda as topics deserving careful attention. The story of how these questions found their way from the periphery to the center stage of politics was told in the last chapter. The aspect which concerns us here is how political elites in the two countries perceived immigration and especially race as mat­ ters over which it was proper for there to be political conflict. THE DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE While this dilemma was of some concern in both countries, British politicians elevated it almost to the point of obsession. Race and immigration have been until now much more in­ tense political controversies there than in France. Whether the situation might have been even worse had British officials attempted to handle the problems through normal political

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

channels is a question I shall want to raise, though no defini­ tive answer may be possible. Ira Katznelson has most forcefully argued the case that the predominant response of the national political elite of Britain has been to seek out a consensus among the parties to defuse the race issue. He identifies three distinct though chronologically overlapping periods: prepolitical consensus, 1948-1961, fundamental debate, 1958-1965, and political consensus, 1965-1968. As he puts it, the "essence of the pre­ political consensus [was that] colour would not be treated as a relevant political category. That there were any problems of discrimination, prejudice, integration, and social deficien­ cies was implicitly denied."1 A number of developments, most notably the 1958 race riots in London and Nottingham, upset the agreement, however, and for several years, Katznelson suggests, the two major parties found themselves in fundamental disagreement over policy on immigration and race. But many members of the political strata were uneasy with the emergence of race on the political agenda and they pushed for a new consensus. The elements of such an accord were contained in the 1965 White Paper issued by the Labour Party and have been described by Katznelson in the following manner: The 1965 political consensus has taken race out of politics . . . in two respects. Immigrants' felt needs and demands are dealt with by quasi-political bodies like the Community Relations Board, which administer the country's anti­ discrimination legislation, rather than by Parliament and the Government directly. . . . Secondly, since 1965 the Front Benches of both parties have accepted the dual framework of very strict immigration controls coupled with anti-discrimination legislation and quasi-political buffering institutions. These institutions . . . have pursued an elite, consensual strategy, leaving the mass of the Third World immigrants politically unanchored.2 1

Black Men, White Cities, p. 122.

2

Ibid., p. 180.

DE POLITICIZATION OF RACE

Exactly why members of the political elite wished to depoliticize race is not easily answered. Katznelson suggests that one reason was the unfamiliarity and novelty of race ques­ tions. Being without ample precedent and structure, they confused and scared politicians who had to deal with them.3 It certainly is the case that, with a few minor exceptions, the problems of race and immigration in postwar France and Britain are relatively new. They do not possess the histories or traditions that accompany issues of class, for example. When particular public controversies have been debated over many years, they become, to some extent, institutionalized. Standard procedures are established to deal with them promptly and with as little disruption of the social peace as possible. The management of class conflict in Western socie­ ties has clearly exhibited this tendency. The growth of col­ lective bargaining as a legitimate means for negotiating labor-management grievances is perhaps the prime example of how potentially revolutionary conflicts have become ritual­ ized to the point of being banal and boring.4 This process takes time, however, and until it has run its course, new issues can be highly disruptive. All concerned parties have to understand what the issues mean, how they relate to their own basic interests—that is, what potential profit or costs they may embody—and how they may be related to other, older, ongoing cleavages. A vocabulary of shared terms and symbols must be developed and disseminated. Until this is accomplished, elite handling of new issues is likely to be tentative, unenthusiastic, and clumsy. Race issues were not readily integrated into the primary framework of British politics—the struggle, however muted and institutionalized, between the classes. Loyalties and beliefs about racial minorities cut across the normal lines of political battle. Back-Bench Tories who railed against im­ migration found themselves taken to task in the pages of the Economist and cheered by meat porters and dockers. Former 3 Ibid., p. 125. Murray Edelman, Politics as Symbolic Action, ch. 8.

4

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

colonial governors joined with dissident socialists to combat restrictions on the migration from the Commonwealth. As Deakin has put it, "no other question in contemporary poli­ tics has the same capacity to cut across party lines and produce bizarre alliances; no other issue generates the same anxieties, activates such blatant avoidance-mechanisms or produces the same unthinking reflex responses in mostly in­ telligent politicians."5 If the weakness of traditional class categories of analysis in providing cues for the behavior of politicians with respect to race and immigration was one reason they preferred to skirt them, the uncertainty that sur­ rounded the potential political effect of one course of action or another clinched the matter. To explain the reasoning behind the establishment of the political consensus in 1965, Katznelson argues that the machinery created to handle race problems—the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants, the Race Rela­ tions Board, and the local liaison committees—was simply a new manifestation of the colonial practice of indirect rule. He concludes that the structures were created "only incidentally to promote integration. Rather [they were] meant to structure and deflect immigrant political participation into non-threatening activity."6 In order to properly evaluate this thesis, to develop certain themes only alluded to or ignored by it, and to bring it up to date (the Katznelson study ends in 1968), it will be useful to examine some evidence on the way the political elite ap­ proached the racial question, how and why they sought to avoid using it for partisan purposes, and what they did when someone breached the agreement. The consensus on race involved not only a convergence of policy between the two parties, but also a willingness to forgo the opportunity to appeal directly to the immigrants them­ selves for political support or to attempt to rally anti-immi­ grant feeling. By far the most troublesome aspect of the 5 6

Nicholas Deakin, "Labour Adopts a White Britain Policy." Katznelson, p. 179.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

agreement was this latter component. Again and again, im­ portant political spokesmen warned of the danger inherent in such a polarizing strategy. Labour Home Secretary James Callaghan typified the view that direct appeals to the minority were illegitimate when he was campaigning before a racially mixed audience during the 1970 election: "I do not ask anybody to vote for me because he is coloured. We have to make up our minds on the economic and social policies that the parties have to offer and on no other grounds."7 Inci­ dentally, the implicit assumption of this statement is clearly that those policies do not and should not differ in any sig­ nificant manner with respect to racial minorities. But if Callaghan would not attempt to cater to the im­ migrant vote, others did try to capitalize on the anti-immi­ grant movement. The response that such attempts evoked from the political establishment is revealing. One of the earliest and most notorious episodes was the 1964 campaign of Peter Griffiths for the parliamentary seat at Smethwick. This was the first general election in which the immigration issue was clearly a factor and most of the attention was focused on the Griffiths race since he openly appealed to antiblack sentiment and because his opponent was the La­ bour Shadow Foreign Minister, Gordon Walker. The cam­ paign has been thoroughly described by Paul Foot. What is most interesting here is the reaction of Tory and Labour leaders to the Smethwick tactic. Foot argues strongly that the Conservative Party very reluctantly and without enthusiasin tried to dissociate themselves from Griffiths' more extreme remarks, but were eager to forgive once he had won the seat. Sir Alec Douglas Home, the Prime Minister, had mildly rebuked Griffiths for saying that "Smethwick rejects a multi­ racial society." But when asked by Gordon Walker to pub­ licly repudiate the candidate, Home answered only that Griffiths agreed with his (Home's) earlier remarks. Further­ more, Foot continues, although after the election the new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, made a remarkable speech 7

Times, 3 June 1970.

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in the Commons in which he promised to treat Griffiths like a "parliamentary leper," during the actual campaign Gordon Walker and other Labour candidates had sought to avoid the immigration question purely because of the prospect of losing votes, rather than from altruistic or humanitarian motives, and that they had even attempted, when pressed, to pass responsibility for the presence in Britain of immigrants off on the Tories.8 Foot, then, is clearly more impressed by the lack of fortitude that politicians being smeared by racerelated attacks have demonstrated, and the alacrity with which certain political entrepreneurs have seized the immi­ grant question for their own benefit, than with their avoidance of the problem. Such an interpretation is not entirely at odds with the consensus thesis. The events of Smethwick occurred during the period that Katznelson has called the stage of funda­ mental debate. Labour was particularly vulnerable to attacks from the Conservatives because the party had opposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and, though the 1964 La­ bour Election Manifesto promised that a Labour Government would maintain limits on immigration, the party was nowhere near as categorical as the Conservatives. The brief episode at Smethwick must have suggested to Wilson and his advisers that continued party division on the matter of controls could be disastrous. At any rate, Labour did erase the difference between the parties with the August White Paper. The actions taken in 1964 by the leaders of the two parties in reprimand­ ing Griffiths, whatever their motives and however hollow they might have been, nevertheless demonstrate that the leadership believed his campaign had been beyond the pale of what could be considered acceptable practice. The period from 1965 to 1968 was the heyday of the political consensus. The immigration question did not figure prominently in the 1966 election. Nicholas Deakin attributed this in part to the decision of party leaders, especially at 8

Foot, Immigration and Race in British Politics, pp. 62, 65-66.

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Conservative Central Office, to instruct their candidates to stay away from it. Heath, the new Tory leader, said on tele­ vision: "This is absolutely plain and clear, the Conservative Party will have nothing whatever to do with any kind of racial discrimination at all. And if I find any candidate is doing this I shall certainly not condone it; I shall condemn it."9 Party leaders were aided in their attempts to still the racial waters by the elite press. Deakin notes that before 1966 the press had considered it taboo to admit that race relations might actually develop into a serious problem in Britain, but during the election of that year they discussed the issues more openly and this, he argues, helped defuse tensions by pub­ licizing the more ridiculous and extreme arguments of the anti-immigrant right. In effect, the publication of the activities of certain candidates flirting with direct racist appeals em9

Quoted in Deakin, "The 1966 General Election," pp. 2-10; re­ printed in Sheila Patterson, Immigration and Race Relations in Brit­ ain, 1960-1967, Appendix VI. The political bargaining that had gone on behind the scenes to ensure that individual Tory candidates would not campaign on the issue of "keeping out the blacks" was de­ scribed in the Sunday Times: The chief progenitor of the immigration policy was Peter Thorneycroft. . . . [He] went to see Heath last year . . . and said some­ thing must be done to resolve the tussle between "the hawks and the doves." In February, the issue split the Home Affairs Commit­ tee in three ways. Thorneycroft and a substantial group favoured the proposals which eventually came out in the Manifesto. Some people wanted to get rid of the idea of Commonwealth quotas, and treat all immigrants as aliens, possibly revising the aliens legislation. And a small group of liberals . . . wanted to leave things alone. These suggestions were passed on to the policy committee on home affairs under the direction of Sir Edward Boyle. When it came to writing the Manifesto, the immigration ques­ tion was handled by the same basic deal that Heath used for sev­ eral hot issues. In return for being left to write the generalized first section pretty much as he wished, he made concessions in the list of individual points which form the second section (13 March 1966).

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barrassed Central Office and led them, in at least one case, to order a candidate to dissociate himself from the extremist English Rights Group.10 The air of self-congratulation that pervaded discussion of race politics after the 1966 election, however, was shortly to be disturbed by the most insistent, direct, and powerful dis­ sident to attempt to forge a political coalition on the basis of racial fears and prejudice. The political ideas of Enoch Powell will be explored in chapter 8. What interests me here is the reaction of the political establishment to Powell's sen­ sational Birmingham speech in 1968. He was promptly removed from the Tory Shadow Cabinet and when he per­ sisted in speaking out on the subject, Heath took the extraor­ dinary step of publicly declaring that under no circumstances would Powell be a Minister in a new Conservative Govern­ ment.11 It is clear that Powell had angered Heath many times, and not just over immigration. He was certainly ambitious for the Tory leadership and there was consequently some hint of political self-preservation in Heath's actions. But it seems that at least as important was the recognition that Powell was simply outside the mainstream of British politics. He was not only not an adherent of the primary elements of the political consensus, he was committed to challenging them openly and forthrightly. The occasion of his political exile was his straying on the matter of race, but at other times he had struck out against the welfare state, a mixed 10

Deakin, "The 1966 General Election." On the general role of the media in Britain with respect to race see Paui Hartmann and Charles Husband, Racism and the Media. 11 Times, 4 February 1970. In a Times leading article entitled "How Fall'n, How Changed," the editors wrote that Powell could never lead the Conservative Party: There is one good aspect to all this. Mr. Powell is an issue in this election, but Powellism is not. His personality, his emotional force, his lurid speeches, are central to the election debate. But there seems to be nobody who is taking to heart what he says in the way his first speeches on race were taken to heart (15 June 1970).

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economy, British foreign policy, the status of Ulster, and the Common Market. The central point for the present argument is not necessarily why Heath banished him from the Front Bench, but that he felt that he could do so and maintain his own position within the party. At least as unacceptable as his opinions about immigra­ tion was the manner in which Powell chose to express them. The terms with which race and immigration could be dis­ cussed in public were narrowly bounded and often provoked as much controversy as substantive policy proposals. This concern on the part of the elite for the character of public discourse stemmed from the presumed intense, if often latent, interest of the mass public in matters having to do with im­ migrant and racial minorities. Its result was a preoccupation with the dissemination of information and ideas on the sub­ ject. In Britain its implication for the behavior of politicians was that they should refrain from playing on the fears or opinions of the man in the street. This was, after all, one of the central tenets of Conservative orthodoxy—the idea that the party led rather than followed public sentiment.12 Powell's attempts to use the race crisis in the manner of an Americanstyle populist were simply unacceptable. It left him open to the charge of demagoguery. Heath's efforts to reestablish the agreement among elite political actors were doomed to failure, however. As the last chapter pointed out, the questions of immigration and race continue to be a major part of political life in Britain. The 12 James Christoph, "Consensus and Cleavage in British Political Ideology," p. 636, considered this not just a Tory notion, but a basic component of British political culture:

Britons are widely agreed that the principal duty and task of gov­ ernment is to govern: however important it may be in this age to couple the authority of government with a substantial measure of mass participation, the more populistic elements should not be allowed to paralyze the power of the Crown. See also, on this point, Samuel Beer, British Politics in the Collectivist Age, pp. 245-251.

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East African Asian crises and the bitter argument over the 1971 Immigration Act were only the most obvious examples. The strictly political role of race and immigration as is­ sues in France appears on the surface to have been different than was the case in Britain. In the end, however, the out­ come was much the same. The public debate in France was much less clear-cut and well publicized than in Britain. Im­ migration was never a national election issue. Only in 1973 and after did the President of the Republic personally dis­ cuss the problem. Before that, the principal political leaders of the Fifth Republic rarely said anything about the subject. Race had less opportunity to become a party issue because the same party or coalition was in office throughout most of the period under study, and for reasons to be explored later, the parties of the left were slow to use the migrants as a political cudgel. The result is that the immigration policy process in France was much less intensely political than in Britain. Discussion centered on the fine points of economic policy, manpower needs, and planning projections. The leadership managed to avoid almost all discussion of the desirability or feasibility of recruiting racially different work­ ers to France. Furthermore, though there was demonstrable public outrage over the despicable conditions in which mi­ grants lived, this, too, was to a great extent dodged by policy makers except under such dramatic circumstances as at Aubervilliers in 1970. The most dramatic episode in French race relations oc­ curred in the summer of 1973, after a Marseilles bus driver was killed by a mentally disturbed Arab. A massive out­ burst of racial violence occurred in many parts of France. With a few exceptions, all the violence was perpetrated by the French against North African, especially Algerian, im­ migrant workers and their families, at least eleven of whom were murdered between August 29 and September 21. Presi­ dent Georges Pompidou's government responded in a com­ plex and contradictory manner. Speaking at a Council of Ministers' meeting on August 31, the President observed:

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"France should not become entangled in the snare of racism. Sometimes, the simple fact of saying the word summons up the idea and reality, unfortunately, often follows the idea."13 In other words, the best way to combat racism was to keep it buried from view. But if Pompidou hoped to end the con­ flict by maintaining a low profile, others in the government seemed deliberately to inflame the situation. Raymond Marcellin, the controversial Minister of the Interior, stepped up a personal campaign to expel a large number of aliens who were guilty of disturbing the "civil order." Furthermore, in the weeks of brutal attacks which followed the Marseilles incident, not one Frenchman was arrested and charged with murder. Many people felt that the government's reaction to the harassment of immigrants was to take advantage of the situation to rid the country of the leadership cadres of im­ migrant organizations.14 Most French officials followed the President's lead, how­ ever. Occasionally a prominent figure would make the per­ functory claim that he abhorred racism, but he would also usually deny that the situation called for any firm govern­ ment action. Prime Minister Pierre Messmer commented dur­ ing the same period in 1973: "I have said and I will repeat that racism horrifies me. I spent a part of my life fighting it and not just with words. I think that France should be— and remain—a country where foreigners are welcomed, un­ derstood, and respected."15 This modest appeal on the behalf of the immigrants is about as far as any important French government figure went in publicly condemning racism and serving as a spokesman for the rights of the migrants until the election of Giscard d'Estaing in 1974. There was never a political consensus on race and immi­ gration in France between the major political groups. What did exist was a situation in which the government could direct policy with little public involvement or dissent. This 13

Le Monde, 1 September 1973. Bernard Granotier1 Les travailleurs immigres en France, pp. 3-4. 15 Le Monde, 1 October 1973.

14

DE POLITICIZATION OF RACE lasted for a long time, but eventually the realities of racial conflict and race-related social disorders became so clear that the government could no longer maintain its posture. Actions had to be taken to quiet public unrest and to shortcircuit increasingly serious attempts by left opposition parties to develop political strategies involving the migrant commu­ nities. The decisions taken to slow and then halt further nonwhite immigration and to encourage temporary arrange­ ments were the result in part of these developments. In both Britain and France, then, the predominant re­ sponse of the government to the intrusion of racial conflict into the political system was to try to depoliticize the situa­ tion. In Britain this effort took the form of more or less open and formal undertakings between the two Front Benches to forgo the use of racial appeals for political pur­ poses and to demonstrate good faith by enforcing discipline among the party ranks. In France, on the other hand, the attempt to take or keep race out of politics was the handi­ work of ministers and civil servants who were engaged in directing the country's economy and foreign and colonial policy. How can one explain both the common drive to depoliticize racial questions and the varying means employed and success achieved in the two countries? To answer these questions it is necessary to consider the nature of the elite political cultures in the two systems, the relative political merits and disadvantages attached to the minority issue, and the nature of the policy-making processes involved. WHY THE POLITICAL ELITE TRIED TO TAKE RACE OUT OF POLITICS One should be cautious in labeling individuals, let alone political systems, in such stark terms as "ideological" or "pragmatic."16 Nevertheless, it may prove useful to draw on 1« Robert D. Putnam, "Studying Elite Political Culture." I will fol­ low Putnam's loose definitions of elite as "those who in any society rank toward the top of the (presumably closely intercorrelated) di-

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the sizable literature which explores the political culture of those at the top of the French and British political systems. The generalizations from this field serve as a ground against which one may highlight the primary features of race and immigration politics. To what extent did the behavior of government officials in dealing with immigration and race relations follow the pattern one would expect from the results of political culture studies? The elements of the British political culture that are relevant to this discussion are the degree of commitment to the fundamental norms governing the operation of the sys­ tem, the "rules of the game," and the attitudes toward polit­ ical conflict. Students of the British political elite agree that it is relatively homogeneous and that basic widespread agree­ ment exists among its members (as well as the mass public) about the fundamental norms of the society and government. Commitment to the fairness of the institutions and operative norms of the regime leads to a willingness to compromise, bargain, and settle for partial, rather than total, fulfillment of one's demands.17 This means that political competition will normally be limited, moderate, and focused on details and specific proposals rather than on basic principles. The central vehicles of government and politics are the parties, and it is through them, in the parliamentary arena, that the electorate is given the opportunity to choose its leaders and to attempt to change or maintain the system. The parties may not only disagree over particular questions, they are supposed to offer alternative programs to the people. Political conflict, then, within the institutions of the parties and the Parlia­ ment and within the boundaries established by widely shared norms governing the rules of the game, is legitimate and desirable. How did the British reaction to nonwhite immigration mensions of interest, involvement, and influence in politics," and of elite political culture as "the set of politically relevant beliefs, values, and habits of the leaders of a political system" (p. 657). 17 Christoph, "Consensus and Cleavage."

Ill

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coincide with these generalizations? In their desire to obscure the real differences that separated elements of the two major parties, the political leadership departed from the normal pattern of political life in the United Kingdom. On most do­ mestic issues, the parties usually try to persuade their sup­ porters that the gap between them is greater than an objec­ tive observer might guess. On the issue of immigration, ex­ cept for the debate over the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962 and other isolated occasions, both Front Benches sought to deny that they disagreed in any essentials with their opponents. The politics of race resembled the extraor­ dinary course of events that one associates with British crisis or wartime behavior more than with politics as usual. Al­ though no one suggested a national unity coalition, in fact the agreement not to debate race policy on the political stump amounted to the same thing. Race threatened to be a particularly nasty issue, one which might seriously disrupt the stable relations that had characterized the ConservativeLabour arrangement. The leadership of the parties must have feared that racial controversy might lead to a breakdown in the system of authority and control that existed within each party. This was an especially pertinent concern for the Con­ servatives, for it was the constituency organizations that con­ sistently pushed the immigration question onto the party agenda. It was a grass-roots issue for which the party front rank had little sympathy and which, if allowed to get out of hand, might permanently alter the distribution of power within the party. The dilemma confronted in Transport House by the lead­ ers of the Labour Party was more complicated if less serious. They faced a rebellion by the working class if they persisted in a strongly pro-immigrant policy and a defection by the socialist-intellectual left if they opted for controls. For them, too, the less said about the subject, the less intense public opinion, the better. What emerges from this analysis is the conclusion that there was a community of interest between the leaderships of

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the two parties to kill the race issue and with it any possi­ bility that it might spark a revolt of the rank-and-file party activists. Both Front Benches had incentives to reduce the salience of racial matters and the best way to do this was to eliminate the policy differences on immigration that existed between the parties. As long as discernible alternatives could be found in their public stances, it would be impossible and illogical to prevent immigration from becoming an electoral and partisan issue. This pattern of elite accommodation at the top to bridge serious conflict at the mass level is more consistent with the model of consociational democracy that Lijphart and others have identified than with the pluralist-consensus model normally used to interpret British politics.18 It raises the question whether racial heterogeneity will eventually po­ larize the British public to such an extent that this kind of arrangement, till now most common in ethnically and re­ ligiously fragmented societies like Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, will become institutionalized. The break­ down of the consensus after 1968 and the partial surrender of both the Conservative and Labour parties to the anti-immigrant forces within them may mean that the elite stratum is no longer capable of either reaching a viable compromise within itself or of imposing that accord on its followers. If the analysis of elite political culture is only partially satisfying in illuminating the British case, one must ap­ proach events in France with some trepidation, for there is far less academic unanimity on the nature of political cul­ ture in that country. France has often been taken as the polar opposite of Britain, reflecting the traits of a conflictridden political system in which fundamental differences separate the major groups in the society. The French political culture, in this interpretation, is fragmented, infused with ideological conflict, and highly charged.19 18

Arend Lijphart, Politics of Accommodation. See Duncan MacRae, Politics, Parties, and Society in France, 1946-1958, for a discussion of cleavages in French society. 19

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There is another view on this question, however, which stresses the growth of a set of "technocratic" values which seeks to transcend ideology and, in the end, politics. The technocrats, we are told, approach governing as a problemsolving enterprise. They assume the existence of a "public interest" that it is their special task and talent to serve. They value expertise, technical knowledge, empiricism, compe­ tence, and efficiency, and they evade or ignore the distrac­ tions of purely political questions as beside the point. Deci­ sions based on political considerations, according to this view, almost always require less than optimum choices. The compromise and bargaining inherent in political processes destroy the efficiency of government and are incompatible with the proper management of the nation's affairs which it is the duty of the state to carry out.20 One will recognize that the technocratic model and the conflict-ideology model of French political culture have little in common. No doubt both are exaggerated and overdrawn, but if the literature on the political values of French elites is contradictory, that must in part result from a real ambi­ guity in the values of French leaders. Sharp political cleav­ ages do exist, ideology is alive and well, and the dreamnightmare of an apolitical, technocratic administrative class developed in response to these facts. I do not intend to at­ tempt to untangle this complex and confusing question here. My task is not to make a definitive argument about the po­ litical orientations of French decision makers. What I want to do is suggest what implications may be drawn from the behavior of those decision makers with respect to labor mi­ gration and racial conflict. That is, does French policy in 20 The

central text of this school is Jean Meynaud, Technocracy. Speaking of technocratic ideologies, he writes that "they generally have one trait in common: the central place is reserved for eco­ nomic affairs. In general, it is in relation to the demands of the economy that these systems of thought are constructed and stated." The most balanced and useful discussion of the debate over tech­ nocracy in the French context can be found in Ezra N. Suleiman, Politics, Power and Bureaucracy, ch. 14.

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this arena conform more closely to a conflict or technocratic model of elite values? More precisely, can the way race and immigration were treated as political issues be better under­ stood through the one perspective or the other? The first thing that one should note is that in contrast to the situation in Great Britain, there was very little public or self-conscious discussion among French politicians about the proper role of race in the political process, or about the legitimate means by which race-related questions could be debated. The politics of race was not itself an important or central controversy as it was in Britain. But there was con­ cern about the possibility of an outburst of mass prejudice and about the potentially disruptive possibility of minority protest. The French law on racial discrimination, until 1972, dealt exclusively with incitement to racial hatred. Newspa­ pers and magazines which published racially inspired attacks on migrants were occasionally prosecuted.21 And from time to time a government spokesman would urge delicacy and restraint on the part of the public officials dealing with minority matters. In the final analysis, however, one must conclude that depoliticization of race was a less compelling task in France than in Britain. It may well be that the reason for this is simply the less intense nature of race politics in France, at least until recent years. But a contributing factor is, I think, the style that characterizes French decision making in this area and the process by which policy is made. The racial aspects of French immigration became salient only after the end of the Fourth Republic, and it was really the convergence of race and immigration that eventually attracted serious public at­ tention. Therefore, it is within the structures of the Gaullistdominated regime created in 1958 that the politics of race in France must be analyzed. The Constitution of the Fifth Re­ public greatly reduced the role of Parlement, and this served to accentuate a tendency already apparent in its predecessor —decisions about French policy on immigration were taken, 21

Le Monde, 18 January 1975.

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primarily, by civil servants, planners, and Ministers, not by Deputies. The way these decision makers thought, talked, and acted about immigration is strongly parallel to what one expects of actors in a technocratic system. There was a powerful tendency for those officials with responsibility for immigration policy to emphasize the tech­ nical and economic aspects of the problem. They tended to talk in terms of planning goals, demographic trends and imperatives, and manpower forecasts and needs. They sel­ dom discussed what might be called the human, political, or social sides of the phenomenon. The idea that an imported minority labor force might become dissatisfied and demand a modicum of political representation seems never to have occurred to those who set about creating such a group. There was more awareness that the presence of racial minor­ ities might lead to social friction, but this did not alter policy significantly until the conflict reached crisis proportions in the 1970s. An example of the obliviousness to the social consequences of a strictly planning approach to immigration can be found in the sections on immigration in the succes­ sive Plans for Economic Modernization. Not until 1958 with the publication of the Third Plan did the report of the Com­ mission on Manpower allude to any need for special efforts to carry out smoothly the massive immigration it called for: The importance of this phenomenon [current immigra­ tion] should not be under-estimated. An immigration of from 15 to 20,000 workers a year [the figures for 19501956] can be approached empirically. An immigration of 50,000 [the figures for 1957-1961] requires the elabora­ tion and implementation of an immigration policy.22 But while the report notes that this is all the more urgent because the migrants are no longer normally Europeans, its subsequent suggestions deal primarily with steps necessary to ensure that France will be competitive with her European neighbors in attracting foreigners. That is, the programs of 22

L'immigration dans la Troisieme Plan," p. 13.

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amelioration the Third Plan proposes (primarily an aug­ mented housing effort) are designed to facilitate the intro­ duction of still more foreign workers. The report concludes, too, that these workers must be encouraged to settle per­ manently because of France's demographic situation. There­ fore, in spite of the growing recognition that certain social welfare difficulties accompanied the importation of large numbers of Third World workers, there is about the report a cheerful and naive faith in the assimilative capacity of France. The predominance of the economic planning perspective on immigration helped retard the development of a signifi­ cant public debate over the direction of that policy. Fine distinctions between the number of skilled workers needed in the construction trades and the probable rate of peasant movement to the cities are not the stuff of political conflict among even that upper stratum of the public that normally participates, however passively, in the argument over govern­ ment policy. Faced with the inherently controversial propo­ sitions of bringing in large numbers of non-European work­ ers to live in France, those who directed policy came to frame the discussion in the least controversial, most techni­ cal, and most boring terms possible. They did this in order to avoid public reaction, to be sure, but they also acted in the way that was most normal and meaningful for them. In other words, I do not see this as conclusive evidence of a conscious ploy to depoliticize immigration and race relations so much as it is the natural consequence of the manner in which the officials in charge of those policies approached public affairs. The results, however, were the same in any event. The tendency of policy makers to treat immigration in apolitical terms was reinforced by the nature of the French policy process. I have not set out to present a detailed study of the policy-making process per se, and consequently the following comments will be rather general and speculative. Nevertheless, it appears that one of the primary differences

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between the French and British cases is the way in which decisions were formulated and carried out. I will explore these differences in more detail in the next chapter, but what is relevant here is how the nature of the decision-making process affected the politicization of the issues. In Britain, almost all major policy departures were con­ tained in Acts of Parliament. Those that were not, such as the 1965 White Paper, were still presented in that forum and debated. The centrality of the Commons in the process meant that decisions were made in a highly political atmos­ phere, with more or less full and open debate. This gave opponents of immigration and Back-Bench dissidents the opportunity to expound their views to the public. Whatever the merits of such an arrangement, it is certainly not con­ ducive to quiet, unobtrusive decision making. In France, on the other hand, immigration policy was made in the Minis­ tries or in the Council of Ministers, was simply announced through the issuance of terse communiques or the publica­ tion of circulars, decrees, or economic plans. No major legislative acts were passed after November 2, 1945, al­ though the Debre Law of 1964 did provide an opportunity for discussions of housing programs. In general, the dialogue that did occur in the National Assembly, such as that en­ gendered by Parliamentary Questions put to various Minis­ ters, was highly structured and permitted little give-and-take. The central pieces of migration policy, other than the minis­ terial circulars, were the various bilateral accords which France negotiated with supplier countries. These were ar­ rived at behind closed doors, in private discussions between the relevant Ministers. Furthermore, direct French control over Italian immigration was lost by the coming to force of Articles 48 and 49 of the Treaty of Rome. In all, a signifi­ cant portion of French policy was either subject to or greatly influenced by individuals and institutions unconnected with the French state. In summary, the structure of the French policy machinery was not conducive to wide public involve-

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ment and the terms in which argument over immigration was pursued only accentuated this tendency. Brier and Axford, in a difficult and complex article, have suggested that the politics of racial consensus in Britain may usefully be analyzed in the context of Habermas's work on legitimation problems.23 It is the contention of Habermas that there exist in late capitalist societies contradictions which cannot be expressed as political issues or placed on the public agenda ("thematised," in Habermas's terms) be­ cause to do so would undermine the operating assumptions of such systems. This approach seems relevant to the British case and offers possibilities for the explication of the French experience as well. In particular, an analysis which begins from the standpoint of legitimation problems promises to explain why the elite sought to eliminate racial conflict as a political issue but were much more reticent about launching major efforts to resolve the social problems of the minority, why elites in both countries appeared willing to tolerate moderate levels of hostility between the races, and why the particular consensus which emerged in each country took the form that it did. Such an approach also allows us to ex­ plain in part why the attention given to removing race from the agenda was so much more focused in Britain than in France. Government policy on race and immigration, if one fol­ lows the lead of Habermas, must be interpreted within the context of more general system goals and crises. Govern­ ments in the West, more than others, depend upon consent, on authority freely given by the public. The structures by which this is assured are liberal-democratic constitutional forms. Anything which threatens to undermine or weaken the power of these structures must be a source of grave concern for the political elite. Race discrimination and ex23 Alan Brier and Barrie Axford, "The Theme of Race in British Social and Political Research," pp. 2-25. For the ideas of Jurgen Habermas which are relevant here, see his Legitimation Crisis.

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ploitation was such an issue. In particular, the existence ot clearly unequal and unjustifiable treatment of blacks relative to that accorded whites promised to make a mockery out of the liberal-democratic pretensions of both Britain and France. As the seriousness of the failure of the government to extend to immigrants all the blessings of liberal democracy became more evident, it would provide the minority with a basis for attacking the system, hand to the left-wing op­ ponents of the regime a ready-made issue, and also further weaken the support which the government enjoyed from the public at large. If one applies the basic crisis framework which Habermas has developed to the analysis of immigration and race, one must start with the attempt to use labor migration to solve problems which have arisen in the economy.24 There are at least two aspects to this: purely economic difficulties such as labor shortage, inflation, and unsatisfactory rates of growth, and political-economic problems such as intransi­ gent and uncooperative work forces. Immigrant labor, as will be demonstrated more fully in chapters 6 and 7, was potentially useful as a tool to deal with each of these chal­ lenges. But in order to manage successfully the economy through the importation of labor, it is necessary to avoid the problems which labor migration creates in other arenas— especially, its exposure of the gap between fact and rhetoric in the liberal ethos which occurs most dramatically during episodes of racial conflict between immigrants and indige­ nous citizens. I agree with Brier and Axford that approaching the prob­ lem of consensus on race through the lens of the problems of legitimation and the management of political and economic contradictions illuminates the British experience and makes it more understandable than it might otherwise be. How­ ever, I believe that it is important not to conclude that British officials resolutely sought to exploit immigrant labor from the New Commonwealth for economic profit. One of 24

See Legitimation Crisis, pt. 2.

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the primary arguments of this book is tha* this is precisely what they failed to do. That such a cor elusion is slightly out of step with contemporary theories CL the political man­ agement of capitalist expansion should not blind us to the facts. I will attempt in chapter 6 to show why British of­ ficials were unable to grasp the economic possibilities in im­ migration from the Commonwealth. For now the important point is to explain their attempts to sustain a consensus on the depoliticization of race in the absence of overwhelming economic motivations. Members of the British political elite were caught on the horns of a dilemma. Faced with a migration which no one wanted, but which could be stemmed only with great diffi­ culty, they sought to make the best of a bad situation. They chose what must have seemed to be the least unattractive alternative. Controls would be instituted, and heroic at­ tempts would be made to keep mass discussion of the issue within tolerable bounds. There were two reasons for this. If the minority or its allies succeeded in mounting something on the order of an American-style civil rights movement, then the contradiction between British ideology and consti­ tutional structure, on the one hand, and the inability to guarantee equality to all citizens, on the other, would be openly revealed. Such an outcome was clearly undesirable from the point of view of the government, but I believe it was less salient to them than the second possibility.25 That was that opponents of immigration might seize the issue and create a nativist reaction to black Britons powerful enough that the government would feel compelled to resort to such draconian measures as compulsory repatriation in order to quell the unrest. Despite the complaints of black militants, there is no good reason to believe that any but the most ex25 On this point I disagree slightly with Katznelson who argues that the primary purpose of the elaborate system of "political buffer" in­ stitutions set up by the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968 was to prevent blacks from becoming a threatening political force. See n. 2, supra.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

treme political figures were ever sanguine about such a prospect. Taking race out of politics, then, was for British officials the only way of managing the contradictions between the economic and social exploitation of immigrants and the pre­ cepts of the liberal-democratic ethos, a contradiction greatly intensified because Commonwealth immigrants could lay claims to citizenship. This meant that the denial of the rights of these individuals was much less defensible than it might have been otherwise. Depoliticization took the form of a two-pronged policy. On the one hand, controls were meant to head off the development of a grass-roots antiimmigrant reaction. On the other, the community relations structures of elite-dominated boards and commissions which were created by the Race Relations Act, 1965 created a formal sense that something was being done about the situa­ tion of the minority.26 The French case seems to me to fit much more closely the categories and hypotheses of Habermas's analytic frame­ work. Migration in France was a consciously developed policy to deal with the crises of advanced capitalism. There, a policy of "lowered voices" was evidently designed to en­ sure that the economic goals > of the policy would not be dashed on the rocky shoals of its social consequences. French policy makers were faced with th'e problem of im­ porting millions of foreign workers into the country in order to meet the targets of the plan. They had to do this in spite of the fact that there was indigenous resistance to such a policy. The thematization of race and immigration in France was achieved in the technocratic language of economic planning. Immigration was analyzed in dollars and cents terms, looked on purely as an economic matter. This ap­ proach, besides being as I have already argued, the normal perspective of French policy makers, was also the result of a recognition that it was impossible to treat migrants equally 26 See Brier and Axford, p. 20, for a slightly different interpreta­ tion to which I am indebted.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE with French workers and maintain the French economy in its present form. Left-wing criticism of government actions eventually centered on the effort to guarantee all migrants social and economic equality with citizens (this will be dis­ cussed more fully in chapter 7). The presumption was con­ sistent with the argument I am making: that such a condi­ tion was simply unattainable within the context of French capitalism. In Habermas's language, the issues of race and immigration could not be thematized without highlighting a major contradiction of the system. There was, however, one important difference between the French and British cases and it may in the end prove decisive. Migrant workers in France were not normally citizens. In fact, French officials often stressed that immigrants were not entitled to a political role because they were not French. This explains why the French saw no need to set up political buffer institutions similar to those created in Britain. They also argued that the primarily economic motives of the mi­ grants made their living conditions matters of free choice and hinted that if conditions were really unacceptable im­ migration would be self-regulated. The relationship between migrants and the French state was not that of citizen to government but of partners in an economic transaction freely entered into. The economic terms of the depoliticization of race in France were equally suited to blunt immigrant po­ litical and economic aspirations and to head off nativist sentiment since, as the government liked to point out, in an economic transaction, both partners stand to profit. THE CONSEQUENCES OF TAKING RACE OUT OF POLITICS Despite the determination and skill of those individuals guiding immigration policy in France and Britain, the ma­ nipulation of consensus was only partially successful. It was not only that eventually race became a significant issue of conflict between political parties in both countries. Even when they were able to prevent the subject from emerging

DEI'OLITICIZATION OF RACE

on the public agenda, there were unfortunate and negative consequences of their policy. In what follows, it is important to distinguish the failures of depoliticization as a strategy of a political elite bent on maintaining its position from the more general consequences for the minority and the political system as a whole. The rationale which underlay the agreement to depoliticize race in Britain had two parts. The first was that, provided an outbreak of racial hysteria could be averted, the problems of the immigrants would gradually disappear through natural processes of adaptation and through the operation of the various agencies of the modern welfare state that already existed—that is, that there were no problems of systematic and pervasive discrimination against the group. The second was that the basic good will of the government toward the minorities could be taken for granted and it would be to the immigrants' advantage to put their trust in it. This meant that minority group members should not organize politically or vote as a bloc, but should divide between existing parties. But governments, whatever their intentions, respond to pres­ sure. This pressure may be that applied by groups or indi­ viduals who have valuable resources with which to bargain for concessions, or it may be that which is produced by a particularly compelling set of circumstances or, I would contend, an especially persuasive argument. Being spared the constant goading of a minority organized in its own de­ fense, government officials were tempted to forget, ignore, and deny that the situation of the minority was critical. Elite refusal to treat race as a relevant political category meant that grass-roots sentiment, both indigenous and immi­ grant, was given little outlet. To consider the former first, Deakin has written that during the 1964 General Election in Britain "some voters were articulating a protest which does not fit neatly into the current party pattern. When an issue [immigration] cuts across the established lines in this way the British electoral system severely limits the ways in

DE POLITICIZATION OF RACE

which a voter can register his discontent."27 Similarly, Wil­ liam Deedes, a leading Conservative spokesman on race re­ lations, has noted that the attempt to take race out of party politics, which he attributes to a "native shyness," was un­ fortunate since "we hammer out most social issues on this anvil, and without these instruments a subject is apt to re­ main shapeless."28 Unable to have their opinions articulated through normal party channels, opponents of immigration were left to use other means, among which protest and even violence were included. Is it reasonable to assume that had the issues been thoroughly debated (at party meetings, for example) much of the energy attached to the anti-immi­ grant question might have been dissipated? Governments react in response to the demands and pres­ sures of the public, but what is often overlooked is the important, often decisive, role they play in shaping and creat­ ing those very demands. Because of their position in authori­ tative roles, their control over information and communica­ tions, and because of the potent ability of public policy itself to create or fulfill mass desires, public decision makers are as much the authors as the pawns of public opinion.29 There can be no doubt that in dealing with the sensitive issues of Third World immigration and racial discrimination, both French and British officials felt terribly constrained because of the intense saliency of the problems for the mass public. But this cannot change the fact that these officials were in a position to modify public attitudes at least to some degree. The interplay between political leadership and mass attitudes will be explored more fully in chapter 8, but one should note here that the desire to defuse the race issue by ignoring or denying it had the effect of exacerbating public fears and tensions. 27

Nicholas Deakin, ed., Colour and the British Electorate 1964, p.

158. 2s Race

Without Rancour, p. 21. 1 pp. 7-11, 36-41.

29 Edelman

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

The wave of immigration of non-European workers into France and Britain created uncertainties and insecurities among the indigenous populations. Much of this was justi­ fied, especially among the working classes. In the absence of effective government efforts to explain, defend, or sell their policies to the public, these understandable anxieties were played upon by political entrepreneurs who had neither the interests of the workers nor the interests of the migrants among their motives. One might have expected at a mini­ mum that the governments would have countered forcefully the multitude of false, misleading, and scandalous rumors and myths that became part of the public discourse. But this was often not attempted. Even when officials did try to refute opposition charges, the tone in which it was done negated any benefits from the effort. For example, in the running battle between Enoch Powell and James Callaghan over the numbers of Commonwealth immigrants entering the country and the numbers being born to immigrant parents, the latter merely disputed Powell's calculations but did not reject his basic assumption that high rates of either immigration or fertility were bad.30 It is indicative of the poverty of thinking about immigration in Britain that Callaghan had no real basis for defending any particular rates of new immigration other than that they should be as low as possible. Public concern over particular issues is usually greater when the phenomenon in question appears to be out of the control of the government. In a world of crisis and radical 30In a letter to the Times (25 March 1970), Michael Dummett criticizes Callaghan's speech to a race relations conference for having disputed Powell's facts but not his principles. The speech, he argues, "tacitly accepted his assumption that any significant proportion of black people among the population of this country is an evil we must strive to avoid, and claimed merely a failure on Mr. Powell's part to acknowledge the Government's success in avoiding it and in keeping Britain 96 percent white." The text of the address itself may be found in "Notes for the Home Secretary's Speech to the Conference on Community Relations on Wednesday, 18 March 1970," Home Office Press Notice, n.d.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

change, mass publics need to believe in the ability of their leaders to cope. The opponents of uncontrolled immigration in France and Britain who argued that public fears could be quieted only through firm and decisive action by the govern­ ment to master the situation were aware of this proposition. The governments, too, gave credence to this argument when they contended that peaceful race relations at home were dependent upon controls over the flow of new immigrants, since by no other means could the indigenous population be assured that they were not the victims of some unmanage­ able process. There is some intriguing evidence, however, that the re­ luctant and nonpartisan manner in which politicians in Britain handled the race issue may have indirectly con­ tributed to a general decline in public trust in the govern­ ment. Daniel Lawrence argues that the race and immigra­ tion issues and the way in which they were handled by the government may have made a significant contribution to the more general disillusionment with party politics and politicians evident in some quarters of the electorate; that it may have helped reduce the enthusiasm with which many re­ cent votes have been cast for the two main parties; and also that it may have increased the likelihood of support going to minority parties—especially, but not necessarily, those with distinctive positions on race relations and im­ migration.31 If Lawrence's evidence is valid, then British elites may have purchased a modicum of racial peace but at the price of a severe erosion of their more general authority and legiti­ macy. Their attempts to manipulate consensus in order to secure legitimacy actually may have made the situation worse. Furthermore, the manner in which controls were taken in both countries, while it no doubt reduced tensions, also 31

"Race, Elections and Politics," p. 62.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

validated the prejudices of the mass public. It had the effect of demonstrating that nonwhite immigration was undesira­ ble, and it greatly weakened the position of those immi­ grants who had already settled. Especially when immigration controls were not accompanied by equally forceful develop­ ments in the domestic field, the effect of a racially selective control policy was to tell the mass public that criteria of color were, after all, politically legitimate and relevant. It is one of the ironies of contemporary immigration and race relations in France and Britain that although they are among the most divisive and explosive issues in the postwar period, the minorities themselves can only with great diffi­ culty get the attention of the government. Because officials have preferred to believe that no great problems exist with respect to racial minorities, they have tended to be oblivious to minority pressure and protest. Except for the periodic crises, and the more and more insistent push from the antiimmigrant forces to halt nonwhite immigration, the race re­ lations issue was not very salient to political leaders. This has led to insufficient care for the living and working condi­ tions of immigrants and has fostered a sense of bitterness and frustration within the migrant communities.32 In the final analysis, this may be the most .serious consequence of the apolitical approach to minority politics, for it has in practice meant that immigrants have been denied prominent spokes­ men from among the leadership of the major parties and have been hampered in organizing into a political force. It has been apparent as well that immigrants cannot take the good will of governments for granted. The dynamics of consensus management have caused policy to be very con­ servative. The difference between a racially discriminatory contract-labor system and the belligerently nativist policies 32 Sources on black militancy in Britain are the pages of the monthly Race Today, and Robert Moore, Racism and Black Re­ sistance in Britain. For France, see Tayeb Belloula, Les Algeriens en France.

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

desired by the nationalist right wing are real enough, but it is doubtful that they are sufficient to justify the hands-off policies on the race question that we have seen in both countries. The necessity of maintaining consensus among the Front Benches in Britain meant that immigration policy had to move inexorably to the right. This was because the Tories were willing to take the steps of introducing initial controls on Commonwealth immigration, demanding legislation abro­ gating the entry rights of East African Asians, putting black Commonwealth citizens on the same footing as aliens, and finally denying them the rights of free movement in the EEC. In order to maintain agreement between the parties, Labour was left no alternative but to accept these decisions. In a game of consensus, when one partner is less committed than the other to the perpetuation of agreement or less able to keep its part of the bargain, he has much the stronger hand. The other side of the coin was, however, that the Tories were led to support, begrudgingly, the Race Relations Acts passed by their adversaries. In France, the unwillingness of the government to partic­ ipate in open discussion of immigration was clearly directed as much at liberal and socialist supporters of migrant causes as at their enemies. Here, perhaps more than in Britain, the development of a conspiracy of silence was unfortunate from the point of view of the minority. CONCLUSION

In this chapter I have traced the way in which political decision makers in postwar Britain and France reacted to the emergence of race and immigration as potential sources of partisan conflict. The primary response of both sets of actors was to try to depoliticize race. Among the consequences of such an effort were a concentration on immigration regula­ tion and control as the most effective means of defusing

DEPOLITICIZATION OF RACE

racial tensions, a tendency to complacently ignore the de­ terioration of the living conditions within the immigrant communities and to deny the existence of significant racial discrimination. It is a critical analysis of the assumptions, theories, arguments, and beliefs that guided policy in these three areas that is the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 5

Immigration, Race Relations, and Welfare

THE basic outline of French and British immigration policy

was drawn in chapter 3. I want now to explore the in­ tellectual and ideational aspects of policy. What was the understanding of the problem which guided decision-makers' actions? What was their conception of the role of state authority, the legitimacy of minority demands, the utility of law for effecting social change? How did all these ideas yield the particular mix of decisions, acts, and evasions that constitute the policy response in the two countries? Policy makers sometimes develop rather elaborate justifications for their decisions—outlining the primary considerations that led them to choose a particular course of action. More fre­ quently, this information is revealed, neither consciously nor systematically, in the unfolding of the day-to-day discussions, crises, debates, and political maneuvering that constitute the policy process. In the end, however, one must ferret out the assumptions and values that underlie governmental actions through critical analysis. If much is learned through careful reading of what is said about problems and their solutions, a sensitivity to how it is expressed and what is not said is also mandatory. As Heclo has recently pointed out, "policy acquires meaning because an observer perceives and inter­ prets a course of action amid the confusion of a complex world."1 This chapter will focus for the most part on governmental attempts to deal with the problems of domestic race rela­ tions and immigrant welfare. Before turning to those subjects, 1

Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden, p. 4.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE however, it will be useful to examine some of the charac­ teristics of immigration policy per se. IMMIGRATION REGULATION AND CONTROL Although there were many differences of detail, in the end French and British policy converged. The basic pattern was this: Because of a variety of factors, the immigration of nonwhite, non-European workers and their families began mostly or altogether uncontrolled. After a period of time (much shorter in the case of Britain), this situation became unten­ able. On the one hand, public resentment to the influx was strong; on the other, lack of regulation encouraged a grave deterioration of the living conditions of the migrants. Both governments sought to avoid the imposition of stringent con­ trols, but eventually they did take steps to "master" the situation. The thrust of the changes was to restrict nonEuropean immigration, attempt to remove the last vestiges of a favored status for the countries of the former empires, and to move toward a more and more explicit and narrow manpower justification of immigration. This meant that immi­ gration would be normally short-term and not for permanent settlement and that it would be tied closely to the needs of the domestic labor market. For both France and Britain, the pursuit of such a course required the repudiation of the lofty ideals of internationalism and multiracialism. These broad similarities hide a multitude of divergences in the way the two political systems approached their tasks. These may be elucidated under two headings—the problemdefinitions and goals which were the basis of action, and the instruments which were employed to carry out policy. I have argued that the immigration phenomenon was at the confluence of a number of separate streams of issues and problems. In the early stages, immigration was often thought to be a mere adjunct of programs designed to meet more urgent and significant needs. The French were able to per­ petuate this subordinate issue status much longer than the

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

British and this seems to have had important consequences for policy. Once immigration is a major public concern, in and of itself, it is a matter of time until efforts will be made to tighten controls. That is, the evidence of these two cases is that immigration becomes a central political issue normally because of pressure to halt it. The elements of the French problem-definition included consideration of the requirements of demography, man­ power, and colonial relations, primarily. British decision makers, on the other hand, tended to be oblivious to demo­ graphic questions (save for vague suggestions that the Islands were too crowded), and manpower needs were clearly sub­ ordinate to purely political calculations. In fact, the basic elements of the problem as the British saw it were colonial and racial, and the latter quickly submerged the former. This tendency of British discussion to focus on the color aspect of immigration and its relative lack of salience in France until recently helps one understand those differences in ap­ proach that did appear. The French and British choice of policy instruments differs primarily with respect to bilateralism and manpower planning. There was another significant divergence between the two systems—the highly political and parliamentarycentered nature of the British decision process and the ad­ ministrative, executive style adopted by the French, but this has been sufficiently discussed in the preceding chapter. One of the most important components of the French bilateral approach was the set of agreements affecting the movement of workers within the EEC. But, in addition, France con­ cluded a large number of bilateral accords with the govern­ ments of labor-supplying countries. This was the hallmark of French policy from the immediate postwar period until re­ cently. The British Labour Government seemed to favor this strategy in 1964 when it dispatched Lord Mountbatten to the countries of the New Commonwealth to enlist their support in slowing emigration to the United Kingdom. The mission

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

failed completely, primarily it seems because Britain wanted favors but had little or nothing to offer in return.2 The argu­ ment that Britain was unable to cope with a few hundred thousand dark-skinned visitors must surely have seemed odd to the governments of India and Pakistan. Their lack of sympathy with Britain's plight is understandable. France possessed a much stronger hand when dealing with the gov­ ernments of the countries which were the source of her immi­ gration. At least in the early years, French officials were seeking cooperation in stimulating immigration and they could offer such payoffs as job-training, transfer payments, and guarantees of adequate working conditions and social security provisions. Both governments in such an arrange­ ment had incentives to regulate the flow of manpower. The French choice of policy instruments reflects their preoccupation with economic and manpower requirements. The National Immigration Office, established in 1945, was designed to secure immigrant workers to fill vacancies listed by employers. The organization set up branches in a number of countries to recruit migrants. In addition, arrangements were made by which prospective migrants could be denied residence or work permits if they sought positions in cate­ gories of work that were already on a government list of oversupplied occupations or for which adequate French labor was available. Relatively precise estimates of the numbers and types of workers that would be needed could be made by the Commissions of Manpower of the successive Plans. These projections provided the government with guidelines in ne­ gotiating accords and in making individual decisions con­ cerning the regularization of workers already in France. Britain made a number of apparent attempts to tie immi­ gration to her domestic labor market, as was shown in chap­ ter 3, but these were ineffective and primarily designed to provide a cover for moves to halt nonwhite immigration. The 2 Lord Mountbatten was an exceptionally poor choice of emissary since he was very unpopular in the Commonwealth. In fact, Pakistani officials refused to grant him an interview.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

voucher scheme created in the 1962 Immigration Act pro­ vided no mechanism for relating the number of vouchers granted to the number of vacancies on the job market. A manpower-related immigration policy must be flexible. It must allow the possibility of a large migration one year and a smaller one the next. But British decision makers never seriously considered this alternative. The voucher scheme set upper limits that were theoretically adjustable, but in fact could only be lowered. Although its seems clear that the British and French governments chose different sets of policy instruments and concentrated on different aspects of the immigration phe­ nomenon, it may be that this reflects not so much the par­ ticular definitions of the problem that became ascendant in Paris and London as the dissimilar economic circumstances that prevailed in the two countries. It is certainly true that both the perception of the problem and the choice of instru­ ments of policy makers were affected by the pressing re­ quirements of the economy. To argue that elite perceptions condition behavior does not require one to ignore the fact that external events can affect one's actions, even if they are not perceived. One expects, too, that a policy maker's un­ derstanding of the character of the difficulty facing him will be more or less closely related to the objective circumstances in which he is operating. I assume only that external events are not self-evident, that they do not compel specific inter­ pretations, and that because of this policy makers exercise some independence and judgment in the act of assigning meaning to them. To a significant degree the difference in the British and French choice of instruments to carry out immigration policy was a response to economic exigencies. French industry needed additional manpower. The negotiation of bilateral agreements with countries possessing an overabundance of workers was a useful means for guaranteeing an adequate supply of labor in a very competitive market. Furthermore, French concern over the manpower implications of immi-

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

gration was primarily a matter of ensuring that she did not fall short of her needs, not to avoid oversupplying. Fear of labor shortage is a powerful incentive for seeing immigration as the movement of potential workers. In Britain, on the other hand, the economic situation was almost the reverse. Since unemployment, not excessive va­ cancies, was the principal worry of government officials, they had little interest in integrating immigration policy into a manpower program. And even if they wished to handle questions of immigration through cooperative arrangements with the sending countries they could not, since to do so would involve persuading governments to voluntarily halt the exodus of their unemployed young men. But immigration policy cannot be understood only in terms of the economic conditions in which it developed. Not only is the policy maker's perception of his environment partial and selective, at times it may become highly distorted and unrealistic. Having chosen to focus on a particular compo­ nent of a problem, the decision maker may then consciously or unconsciously ignore, deny, or misperceive evidence con­ trary to his interpretation. A number of examples of this process can be seen in the cases under examination. As was just argued, many aspects of the British approach to immigration become understandable in the context of a persistent fear of unemployment. But .the fact is that the British economy actually needed workers in certain industries and occupations throughout the postwar period. Business spokesmen such as the editors of the Economist repeatedly pointed this out. A number of Labour Party leaders, par­ ticularly Anthony Crosland and those associated with eco­ nomic planning, shared this view. The British attention to the racial aspects of the immigration meant that controls were the only appropriate response and that labor shortages in certain industries would simply have to be ignored. Once it is admitted that nonwhite immigration is in principle un­ desirable, then it is no longer possible or sensible to talk of relating immigration to economic requirements or of nego-

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

tiating immigration agreements with sending countries. The only available alternative is to halt further nonwhite migra­ tion. The need for effective controls will override all other considerations. That the form of controls was that of a manpower strategy should not hide the fact that the sub­ stance of British policy was to keep the blacks out. The necessity of avoiding the appearance of an overtly racist law led the government to clothe their intentions in economic garb. That British policy bore only the vaguest resemblance to a realistic manpower approach can be seen in the recurrent debates over numbers. Public discussion of immigration went on in terms of a "flood," a "wave," an "invasion" of foreign hordes long after firm measures had been taken to slow actual entries except for dependents to a trickle. New policy ven­ tures were taken in response, not to the real movement of persons, but to the straw men that had been set up. There was extreme concern with closing loopholes, apprehending clandestine entrants, and tightening regulations. The 1971 Immigration Act was introduced and enacted to stop a mi­ gration that had already been significantly curtailed and it had the paradoxical effect of actually increasing the possi­ bility of new (white) immigration. Had this kind of symbolic escalation not occurred, there nevertheless would not have been any attempt to harness immigration to economic requirements. There was a firm belief that the capacity of the nation to absorb new immi­ grants was social as much as economic. Roy Jenkins de­ veloped this notion in 1966: In present circumstances we are bound . . . to contain the flow of immigrants within the economic and social capacity of the country to absorb them—the social factor being for the moment, I believe, more restrictive than the economic. There are of course differing views about that absorptive capacity, but the government has a clear re­ sponsibility to see that it is not put so high as to create a

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

widespread resistance to effective integration policies. Equally, it must not be put so unreasonably low as to create an embittered sense of apartness in the immigrant community itself.3 Even the kind of careful balancing that Jenkins suggests, based on political and social rather than economic criteria, was not possible. Instead, as such individuals as Enoch Powell persistently raised the alarm that thousands of immi­ grants were still coming, the government gave up all hope of achieving an equilibrium and sought to close the door com­ pletely. Officials began to play a defensive role, trying to show that the charges against them were not true. Home Secretary Callaghan expressed this point of view in a speech in 1970: "We must destroy the myth that widely exists in this country even now that we are being over-run by new immigrants. . . . Immigration is under very tight control to­ day and only a demagogue would pretend that it is not."4 While it was certainly true that demagogues were busy at work creating the impression of an uninterrupted wave of new immigration, the terms of public discussion were so fo­ cused on numbers that both parties spoke primarily in this vocabulary. Enoch Powell added some variety to this dia­ logue when he shifted his attention to the birth rates among those immigrants already in Britain. This constituted a grudging recognition by the anti-immigrant forces that some curtailment in new immigration had occurred, but in practice the anxiety over fertility was simply added to the ongoing criticism of new entries. The government could only weakly refute these charges. Their own figures on immigration were poorly gathered and highly suspect. Statistics on birth rates were even less reliable. But the major point is that the government accepted the assumption that any sizable new 3 Speech Given at the Commonwealth Institute to a Meeting of Voluntary Liaison Committees, p. 7. 4 Home Office Press Notice, "Notes for Home Secretary's Speech to the Conference on Community Relations," p. 4.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

immigration was undesirable and that high birth rates among the nonwhite population would be unfortunate. They simply argued that there was no important new immigration and that immigrant birth rates were normal. Anthony WedgwoodBenn complained that this type of argument implied that a liberal or progressive was one who believed that there would be few black births in Britain while a conservative was one who believed there would be many. 5 The tendency of race to supplant other dimensions of the immigration issue is also evident in the course of events in France. Policy makers there resisted the emergence of race as the most salient factor for some time, but beginning in 1968 and especially after the crisis in August-September 1973, this was no longer possible. The evidence that a defini­ tion of the problem that gives primary importance to race logically precludes a rational manpower strategy is clouded by the coincidence of the emergence of the race issue with a decline in France's manpower requirements. This must have seemed a fortuitous occurrence to French policy makers since it provided them with a ready rationale for reducing the migratory currents. But it was not wholly satisfactory. The French economy may be less dependent on a steady supply of new foreign labor than it was in the past, but certain sec­ tors of the economy are seen to be more or less permanently dependent on migrants. That is, shortages in these sectors— construction, mining, and low-status service occupations primarily—are structural and not the result of a temporary unavailability of French workers. The simplest solution to this difficulty would have been to maintain the influx of Third World laborers willing to undertake these tasks. But the political and racial pressures to halt further nonwhite entries raised the costs of such an approach sufficiently high to lead officials to search for other alternatives. These were being developed by late 1974—conversion of agricultural workers to industrial tasks, regional development, and imposing 6

Times, 4 February 1970.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

monetary costs on employers of foreign labor to discourage its use. In summary, the evidence from both France and Britain is that when the racial character of immigration becomes its most salient characteristic or when it is official policy to carry out a racially selective program, the usefulness of immigra­ tion in meeting the manpower needs of a country's economy and the possibility of managing immigration in any coordi­ nated fashion through cooperation with the sending nations is seriously diminished. There are three primary reasons why this is so. First, the major sources of foreign manpower available to Western European nations are now and increasingly will be the nonEuropean, Third World nations. Therefore any policy which actively encourages or passively tolerates significant new immigration will result in the creation of nonwhite minorities. If that is ruled out as undesirable, no serious manpower re­ cruitment can take place. Second, the desire to avoid using explicitly racial criteria in deciding who is welcome to enter the country may lead governments to forgo any resort to foreign manpower at all. The 1962 Commonwealth Immi­ grants Act eliminated the easy access of white citizens to Britain in the process of closing the door to the black Com­ monwealth. Even this Act, however, left freedom of entry for citizens of the Irish Republic. The point is simply that governments will attempt to deny the fact that they have sought to exert racially selective controls and in this process may cut off many potential migrants who, on racial grounds, would have been welcome. Such erratic procedures would play havoc with a serious manpower-immigration strategy. The third effect of the racial perspective is to eliminate the possibility of an effective cooperative program with develop­ ing countries which includes migration of the latter's workers to Europe in return for economic aid or benefits to the workers. Sending countries are reluctant to assist govern­ ments in halting or slowing non-European immigration since they consider such policies insulting and discriminatory. They

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

recognize the radical disjuncture which exists between the introduction of a racially selective immigration policy and the rhetoric of a multiracial community of nations which has served to justify continued British and French influence over their former colonies. The next section explores at­ tempts on the part of France and Britain to build multiracial communities at home. CULTURAL PLURALISM, DISCRIMINATION, AND THE STATUS OF MINORITIES

None of the consequences of immigration was more im­ portant than the creation of racial minorities in countries which had hitherto been either ethnically homogeneous for the most part or had never allowed minorities to achieve status and legitimacy. In this section I want to explore how British and French policy makers handled the question of the relations between the races. Specifically, how did they respond to the problem of racial discrimination and com­ munity relations? Second, how was the idea of cultural pluralism developed? What was the legitimate goal for the minority—assimilation, integration, or segmentation? Britain—The Community Relations Approach

The first British legislation against discrimination was passed in 1965. The law dealt solely with the refusal of services in places of public accommodation—pubs, restau­ rants, hotels—and with incitement to racial hatred. Even this limited act was a radical departure from the British legal tradition which emphasizes the neutrality and passivity of the law.6 But the Act said nothing about the important areas of life that involve jobs, housing, and financial relationships. The British government was very hestitant to guarantee racial equality in these fields. Lester and Bindman suggest this is because discrimination in such relationships was seen as un6 Anthony Lester and Geoffrey Bindman, Race and Law in Great Britain, p. 15.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

avoidable. As they point out, the British "have never taken for granted a duty to observe rational and objective stand­ ards of behavior in recruitment, training or promotion of workers, or in the resort to industrial action by trade unions and employers' associations, or in the sale and letting of residential accommodation, or even in the provision of goods, facilities and services to the public."7 Another cause of their reticence was the argument that state intervention in such matters would constitute undue meddling in the right of free individuals to enter into con­ tracts. This was the position taken by both labor and manage­ ment in their testimony against legislation barring discrimina­ tion in employment.8 Furthermore, some opponents argued that an explicit guarantee of the rights of a particular group —racial, religious, or national—would be redundant since existing law applied to all citizens regardless of race, creed, or color. In fact, to single out a certain class of individuals for protection might constitute preferential treatment. There was also a deep-seated opinion that even if prob­ lems of discrimination and prejudice were serious, the law was not the proper instrument for dealing with it. A delegate to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton in 1965 expressed this common opinion: No government can legislate on integration. It depends on individual effort. . . . We can help with education, with housing, and with the social services . . . but, in the end, it comes down to the individual. . . . In conclusion, I quote some words of Samuel Goldwyn . . . "The greatest security a person can have comes from within himself and not from the outside. Nothing anyone can do for you can begin to match what you can do for yourself."9 A final obstacle to the extension of antidiscrimination legislation stemmed from disagreements over facts rather 7 Ibid., p. 16. Sunday Times, 29 January 1967. 9 Conservative Party Conference Report, p. 40.

8

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

than principles. Governments will sometimes transgress their ideological commitments as the result of undeniable objective circumstances, and they often make decisions on the basis of their value orientations in the absence of or in spite of evidence to the contrary, but they will rarely embark on a poorly lit and potentially treacherous legislative path without first having been convinced that some serious and compelling social ill exists. There was a great deal of doubt among the British political leadership, as well as the mass public, that discrimination against nonwhite immigrants was widespread or severe. Normally, minority groups can point to inequali­ ties between themselves and the dominant group as evidence of unequal treatment. In the case of immigrants, however, it was not wholly unreasonable to suspect that most of the inequalities from which they suffered on arrival in Britain resulted from their "immigrant-status"—their lack of famili­ arity with the language and customs of their new home or with life in an urban, industrialized society—rather than from discrimination, and that with sufficient time these diffi­ culties would go away. All of these reservations—ideological, intellectual, and social—caused government officials to resist the demand for new race relations legislation that would expand the scope of the 1965 Act. The task of proponents of legislation was to counter, debunk, or weaken each of the objections to a new law. The first step was to demonstrate that discrimination existed in more than isolated instances. This was accom­ plished when a private research organization (Political and Economic Planning) undertook a study of the status of im­ migrants in Britain. The report10 contained large quantities of statistics documenting inequalities between the races, but what was more innovative and to many Britons shocking were the results from a series of quasi-experimental surveys designed to determine if race were a deterrent to a prospec­ tive job-seeker. The unambiguous conclusion was that race was much more important than objective qualifications. The 10 W.

W. Daniel, Racial Discrimination in Britain.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

PEP Report was greeted with surprise by many in the gov­ ernment, but Roy Jenkins, the new Home Secretary, cited it as evidence that new and more extensive legislation was required. The argument that discrimination did exist in Britain was given considerable urgency by contemporary events in the United States. The period when the two Race Relations Acts were being created in Britain (1964-1968) was marked by massive and spectacular outbreaks of racial violence in North America. These events were followed with intense interest in Britain and many observers thought their implications were both clear and unsettling. In July 1967 the Labour Party published the report of a working party on race rela­ tions which took the position that the most compelling argu­ ment for dealing with racial discrimination was the preven­ tion of the development of an oppressed and bitter underclass. Referring to the American scene, the report says: The effect of deeply entrenched racial discrimination can best be illustrated by reference to recent events in the USA. The outbreak of violence in Watts, Tampa, Chicago, and elsewhere show in extreme form what can occur if action is delayed. . . . The American experience not only warns us of the dangers of racial discrimination but also indicates that legislation can contribute to the solution of this problem, if only it is enacted in time.11 Once the existence of discrimination could no longer be denied, there remained considerable disagreement as to what, if anything, could be done about it. The Race Relations Board set up a committee under Professor Harry Street to study the uses of legislation to combat discrimination in other countries and assess its effectiveness. The Street Report, which was widely read and quoted, drew heavily on the American experience with civil rights legislation and con­ cluded that law could be an important tool in the struggle for equal treatment. The members based their opinion on 11

Labour Party, Working Party Report, Race Relations, p. 18.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

five propositions which were summarized by the Race Rela­ tions Board Annual Report of 1967: 1. A law is an unequivocal declaration of public policy; 2. A law gives support to those who do not wish to dis­ criminate, but who feel compelled to do so by social pressure; 3. A law gives protection and redress to minority groups; 4. A law provides for the peaceful and orderly adjustment of grievances and the release of tensions; 5. A law reduces prejudice by discouraging the behavior in which prejudice finds expression.12 These propositions are worth examination because they relate to a number of fundamental assumptions that have guided British race policy. Discrimination has been seen as a problem of individual prejudice and misunderstanding. It has not been diagnosed as a social-institutional phenomenon. Therefore, remedies for discrimination must involve meas­ ures to change the behavior of individuals. The best way to accomplish this goal, it has been thought, is to educate, inform, and persuade, first of all, and second, to structure the incentives in such a way that the individual will, of his own accord, choose to alter his conduct in the desired man­ ner. The first purpose of antidiscrimination legislation is purely symbolic, or hortatory—it puts the government on record against discrimination and implicitly calls on all citizens to desist from such behavior. The law does not rely primarily on threat or coercion to obtain compliance. Rather, it assumes that the majority of the population is basically possessed of good will toward nonwhite citizens. They will want to obey the law. But there is a sector of the population which is only "tolerant-inclined"—that is, they wish to do what is right, but either out of lack of conviction or vulnera­ bility to social pressure discriminate anyway.13 The law, far 12

Quoted in Lester and Bindman, p. 85. Phillip Mason, the original director of the Institute of Race Re­ lations, made this argument in his summing-up address upon retiring 13

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

from compelling these individuals to treat blacks equally, actually removes those pressures to discriminate that were weighing on them and increases their freedom. The law gives to these citizens a shield and acts as a scapegoat for their behavior. The publican, for example, may now say to his prejudiced customers, "I don't want to serve them, but the law requires it." A law against discrimination, then, was acceptable only if it was essentially voluntaristic. It had to encourage indi­ viduals to choose not to discriminate and it had to rely on unofficial citizens-groups to see that it worked. In the early legislative stage of the 1965 Race Relations Bill, the Labour Government was inclined toward the establishment of crim­ inal penalties and remedies for violations. Through the inter­ vention of CARD, a coalition of white liberals and blacks, and the Society of Labour Lawyers (as well as, one must add, the Opposition which hoped to take the teeth out of the law), it was persuaded to set up conciliation machinery to deal with offenders, with civil proceedings a last resort.14 The Race Relations Act, 1968 was designed to meet the criteria of an acceptable antidiscrimination law. It widened the scope of the 1965 law to cover the important areas of housing, employment, insurance, and credit, and it rein­ forced the conciliation machinery. The structures set up by the Act (and those continued from the Γ965 law) to enforce the provisions against discrimination and promote "harmo­ nious community relations" are the heart of the British ap­ proach to discrimination. The central piece of the race relations structure is the Race Relations Board, created by the 1965 Act and reconstituted in 1970. He was convinced that there was a majority of whites who could be persuaded to act reasonably. "The proper task of the Insti­ tute," he went on, "has seemed to me to provide material which can be used for the conversion of the middle range of people, those who are not violently prejudiced but have never given the subject much thought." Race Today 2:1 (1970). " Lester and Bindman, ch. 3.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

in 1968. The board has a full-time chairman and ten parttime members, in addition to a paid staff. The board appoints local conciliation committees (there are now nine of these, covering all of Great Britain) which are manned by unpaid volunteers and which investigate cases of discrimination and try to arrive at some mutual accommodation. Each local committee is assisted by a paid conciliation officer. The Race Relations Board may hear charges of alleged discrimination or even initiate an investigation. If conciliation fails at the local level, the board may decide to begin civil proceedings. In addition to the board, the 1968 Act created a Com­ munity Relations Commission (superseding the old Common­ wealth Immigrants Advisory Committee set up by the 1965 White Paper). Its joint charge is to promote harmonious community relations and to advise the Home Secretary on matters related to race. Under the Commission is a series of local Community Relations Committees, each with a Com­ munity Relations Officer. The community relations bodies do not deal directly with enforcing the Race Relations Act, but rather seek to promote good community relations in general. A number of points should be made about these bodies. First, they are wholly unrepresentative of the immigrant community (as well as, one should add, of the British white working class). The board and Community Relations Com­ mission are made up almost entirely of white notables, while most of the local committees and officers are white, middleclass professionals.15 Second, the members tend to share a common ideology about community relations which includes 15In an interview in Race Today 3:4 (1971), pp. 167-168, Lord Windlesham, Minister of State at the Home Office, was asked about the representative role of the Race Relations Board and the Com­ munity Relations Commission and whether it would be desirable to have at least some of their members elected rather than appointed. He responded: "No, because neither is a representative body and they are not seen as being directly representative of immigrant groups. People experienced in community relations should serve on them and also people in local government, as indeed they do. I can­ not see the need to have elected members at the moment."

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

most of the assumptions about the nature of discrimination and its remedy that I have already discussed.16 It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the British ap­ proach to race relations. To the extent that official policy is based on the liberal premise that discrimination is a personal moral problem that is susceptible to education, reason, and persuasion, it will be unable to deal with institutional racism or racial strains that emerge from the economic function and situation of the minority. What exactly are the goals of the British race relations strategy? One seems to be the reduction of the aggregate level of prejudice and intolerance in the general population. Survey data on racial attitudes will be explored in chapter 8, and there is no need to go into them now, but it seems that such an approach is based on the sus­ pect idea that public opinion on racial matters can be taken as a given, that there can be obtained some satisfactory 16

Katznelson, among others, has argued that the community re­ lations machinery was a conscious attempt to direct immigrant pro­ test into "non-threatening channels" (see my discussion of this in ch. 4). Iohn Downing disagrees: "The ideology of 'community rela­ tions' and 'harmony' is another outcrop of the strong consensual tendency in British culture and political life, and it is cherished. In this way I must regretfully question the thesis [of those who have] suggested that all this machinery had been deliberately manufactured and fostered in order to head off the development of anything like the U.S. civil rights movement. That it has, may well be the case; but it seems to me that nothing could be more remote from civil service and political policy in the UK than such a thought. I doubt if there was any conscious choice." "Racism and Politics in Britain" (Paper), p. 12. Although this seems persuasive it misses the point that the phenomenon to be explained is not the effort to develop con­ sensus, but the particular way in which this was gone about. The race relations machinery is very different from the mechanisms used to build consensus between the social classes, for example. The co­ lonial experience seems to be the most reasonable answer to this question. For a good analysis of the content and function of the community relations ideology, see Chris Mullard, "Community Re­ lations"; and his On Being Black in Britain, esp. pt. 3. For a detailed empirical study of community relations committees, see Michael JHill and Ruth M. Issacharoff, Community Action and Race Relations.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

answer to the question, "Are the British racists?" But this line of reasoning tends to place the predominant emphasis on the psychological factors that predispose an individual to social intolerance and it tends to ignore the contextual and structural variables. While it is true that the British system is intended to affect the incentives that determine an indi­ vidual's behavior, it is not really capable of altering indi­ vidual prejudice, nor of bringing about structural changes, but it is admirably suited for defusing tensions in particular cases. At the first sign of racial trouble, a host of community relations professionals can be on the scene attempting to reach a settlement. Peace may be restored, but the basic conditions have not been affected. There is evidence that the Labour Party is substantially revising British race relations policy. A White Paper issued by the government in September 1975 proposed a number of potentially important innovations. The document begins with the observation that two of five nonwhite persons in Britain are born in the country and are likely to stay. Their problems cannot be seen as temporary. Rather, the White Paper suggests that there is a cycle of disadvantage involving low-status jobs, poor housing, and depressed environments much as has been discovered in the United States. Existing legislation against discrimination, focusing as it does on the motives of persons engaging in discrimination and on the identification of particular offenders, has proved to be ineffec­ tive. The White Paper calls for new legislation capable of attacking discrimination in its institutional forms. Such a bill was introduced in February 1976 and became law in October of that year. It creates a Commission for Racial Equality to replace both the Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Commission. This new body has the power to identify and deal with discriminatory practices in industry, business, and other institutions. It can issue cease-and-desist notices, bring legal proceedings, and conduct general investi­ gations. The most striking change, however, is to be found in the idea that the law prohibits the setting of requirements

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

or conditions, reasonable in themselves, that nevertheless result in putting any racial, ethnic, or national group at a significant disadvantage, if the requirements are not justifiable on nonracial grounds.17 Nicholas Deakin has argued that one of the most im­ portant factors determining the way minorities will be treated in a particular political system is the extent to which the norms of that system recognize the legitimacy of separate interests.18 That is, how easily can the system accommodate itself to, or even promote, cultural and political pluralism? Chapter 4 examined the reception of the notion of the politi­ cal organization of minority interests. What is of interest here is the regime's position on the question of the future status of the new minority. Everyone recognized that temporarily immigrants would retain their customs, language, and habits. But for how long and under what circumstances could this be tolerated? In the early years of the migration, the consensus among British politicians was that it would be undesirable for a distinct minority based on race or culture to be allowed to develop. They assumed that new immigrants would over time acquire the culture of the British people and become assimilated into the society. This was a justification, in fact, for not taking measures to deal with immigrant problems— any difficulties they might initially encounter would eventu­ ally go away. This assimilationist goal was actually not so much an attack on cultural particularism as it was the ex­ pression of rather naive ideals and notions of the universality of Western and British culture. Rather quickly, however, the British discovered that assimilation was an unrealistic goal, certainly for the first generation, and possibly for many to 17 See

Racial Discrimination, Cmd. 6234. Evidence on the effec­ tiveness of the race relations structure can be found in E.J.B. Rose et al., Colour and Citizenship, passim; and Simon Abbott, ed., Pre­ vention of Racial Discrimination in Britain·, as well as Hill and Issacharoff. 18 "Ethnic Minorities in Urban Politics," p. 137.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

come. There developed an important, though limited, rec­ ognition of the legitimacy of cultural pluralism. British officials initially developed an explicit policy of breaking up immigrant concentrations through dispersal, but they have recently shown signs of moderating this posi­ tion. The objects of a dispersal policy were to facilitate the integration of the immigrants into the host society to avoid their constituting a segregated, urban underclass, and to reduce the burden on the social services that large numbers of immigrants in small areas might create. As a practical matter, the question of dispersal related primarily to educa­ tion and housing. The Department of Education and Science formally out­ lined its dispersal policy for immigrant school children in advice given local educational authorities in 1965. The gen­ eral purpose was to ensure that no school or any one class contained more than one-third immigrants. To attain this objective the immigrants were to be transported to different schools.19 By 1971, however, the Department was having second thoughts. Henceforth, busing would be a last resort.20 This shift in the commitments of educational decision makers reflects a more general modification of the British approach to immigrant concentration. This was expressed by James Callaghan in March 1970. Concentrations of people, he sug­ gested, were not as important as the physical surroundings in which they lived.21 Deakin and Cohen argue that British officials have con­ cluded that deconcentration is impossible in the context of a noncompulsory, incentive-oriented system.22 They suggest 19Circular 7/65, quoted in Department of Education and Science, "Education of Immigrants," p. 17. 2° "Education of Immigrants," p. 21. 2 1 Times, 20 March 1970. 22 See Nicholas Deakin and Brian Cohen, "Dispersal and Choice," pp. 193-201; John R. Lambert, "Management of Minorities," pp. 4979. A recent example of the difficulty of preventing concentration is the experience of the Ugandan Asian Resettlement Board. That agency developed a list of "Red Areas," cities which were thought

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

that the government has chosen to pursue a strategy of "en­ richment" instead.23 In the important field of housing, where dispersal is much more problematic than is the case with the schools, the Cullingworth Committee concluded that "any policy of dispersal . . . must be implemented with great sen­ sitivity, with no element of compulsion or direction, and can proceed only at the pace of the needs and wishes of the people involved."24 The Urban Programme, begun in 1968, may also represent a shift of emphasis away from the "inte­ gration" goals of the 1965 White Paper to an "enrichment" strategy. This alteration in the government's views seems to be as much an admission of defeat as a positive choice. Policy makers have not enthusiastically embraced a number of logical implications of cultural pluralism. They believe that minority groups should not organize themselves politically nor should the political parties attempt to mobilize them for electoral purposes. Furthermore, they were not eager to pro­ mote cultural particularism through, for example, the pro­ vision of bilingual education. The British view of cultural pluralism concerns primarily expressive behavior. It legiti­ mizes the use and manipulation of the symbols of difference and apartness, but denies that these should lead to political and governmental expression. France—The Limits of Interracial Peace

French officials have been much less active than the British in the area of combating racial prejudice and discrimination. Nothing to compare with the elaborate community relations to have too many immigrants living there already, and tried to en­ courage the refugees to move into other areas. The utter lack of success of the venture has been detailed in Derek Humphry and Michael Ward, Passports and Politics. A nonvoluntaristic method of dispersal that apparently worked was used in Holland. See Christo­ pher Bagley, "Immigrant Minorities in the Netherlands." 23Deakin and Cohen, p. 193. 24 Quoted in ibid., p. 194.

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apparatus exists in France, and not until 1972 was antidis­ crimination legislation enacted by the National Assembly. Before trying to explicate the different French perspective on race relations, it will be useful to trace the background of the 1972 Act. Prior to 1972 the basic legislation dealing with race re­ lations was the "Marchandeau law" passed in 1939. It was enacted in a period of crisis and was aimed at propaganda and press campaigns that sought to stir up anti-Semitic feeling. It proscribed the defamation of a group because of race or religion and set up procedures by which members of the offended group could prosecute. Two months after Marshal Petain came to power the law was annulled and all who had been convicted under it were granted amnesty, but it was later restored. Hermantin has made the interesting point that the purpose of the Act was not the protection of minority individuals so much as the protection of the nation. Since decree laws are not debated in the National Assembly, Hermantin examines the report on the law which was sub­ mitted to the President of the Republic by the Legislative Committee which drafted it in 1939. Among other things, the report states that no reason related to race or religion can destroy the equality of citizens, no reserve born of hereditary cir­ cumstance, with respect to even one of them, should strain the spirit of fraternity which unites all the members of the French family. But it is not actually their interest which is at stake, but rather that of the national collec­ tivity. Anything which divides it weakens it. Anything which incites hatred, anything which pits Frenchman against Frenchman can only be considered treason.25 Whatever its intent, the 1939 law was inadequate. The central weakness, apart from its very narrow concern with incitement, was the near impossibility of proving the "inten25

Fred Hermantin, "De !'injure et de la diffamation raciste," p. 59.

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tion" of the defendant to incite to racial hatred.26 From the late fifties, a number of organizations devoted to the prob­ lems of race relations, most notably the Movement Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, and for Peace (MRAP) began to draft new legislation. Bills were introduced in the National Assembly by friendly deputies in 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1969. Although the propositions had political support from the members of a wide variety of political parties, the gov­ ernment never allowed them to reach the Assembly for de­ bate. The official reasoning was that existing legislation was sufficient.27 Finally, in the summer of 1972, the government relented and in what was a very peculiar set of events the law was enacted unanimously in the Assembly and over­ whelmingly passed in the Senate. There was little debate in the Chamber and almost none outside. No strong opposition developed and it was as if the government's resistance to the law simply gave way in face of the persistence of its pro­ ponents. The Act itself was in three parts. The first merely incor­ porated the 1939 law's prohibition of provocation to racial hatred. The second outlawed discrimination based on race or religion, and the third provided for the dissolution of organizations whose purpose was racial provocation. The Act was part of the criminal law-*-persons convicted faced up to a year in prison and/or heavy fines. There was no talk of conciliation, persuasion, or civil proceedings. The existing legal machinery of the state was entrusted with enforcement. The Act did contain one innovation—it stipulated that any antiracist organization that had existed for at least five years could bring suits on behalf of injured parties. With both the American and British experiences in at­ tempting to grapple with discrimination against racial mi­ norities before them, the French apparently looked the other way and developed a characteristically idiosyncratic ap20

Joyce Edmond-Smith, "France's New Law," p. 304. Bernard Granotier, Les travailleurs immigris en France, rev. ed., 1973, p. 231. 27

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proach. To what extent can this be attributed to the ideas and values of the policy makers that relate to the questions of racism and discrimination? Like the British, French officials were not easily con­ vinced that racial discrimination was a serious problem that merited new legislation. Governmental decision makers seemed to think that a low profile was the most useful means of dealing with racism. Like Victorian spinsters afraid to talk about sex, they tried to keep the subject of race hidden from view. This general feeling was reinforced by the am­ biguity of the evidence of discrimination. There were opin­ ion polls that showed the average Frenchman was not welldisposed toward immigrants, especially Arabs, but there was no evidence of actual discrimination as had been docu­ mented in the PEP Report in the United Kingdom. More seriously, however, the undeniable fact that migrant workers occupied the worst housing and the lowest-status jobs in France bore even less clear implications of discrimination than similar inequalities had in the U.S. and Britain. Foreign workers in France were supposed to be employed in the bottom occupational strata—that was precisely why they were recruited or allowed to settle in France. The justifica­ tion of the open door, after all, was that the migrants "did the work the French no longer desired." Some might call the concentration of foreigners at the bottom of the socioeco­ nomic heap exploitation, but it was not readily apparent that it resulted from individual acts of discrimination. The poor housing of immigrants, while it was considered out­ rageous and scandalous, was often attributed to the circum­ stances or incentives of the migrant situation, and the short­ age of suitable dwellings. Many government officials believed, with some justification, that a sizable proportion of the inhabitants of slum housing were there as a matter of choice (choice, it must be stressed, within the context of the migrant situation). Desiring to save as much of their salaries as possible and preferring to live with their friends, these individuals were simply unwilling to purchase decent living

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accommodations. The issue of the living and working condi­ tions of migrants, then, was really whether immigration could be allowed to continue, not whether systematic dis­ crimination could be halted. This was remarkably different from the situation in Britain where there was evidence that the inferior social position of a more or less permanent minority was at least in part the result of discrimination and segregation and where antidiscrimination efforts were de­ signed to create the conditions for, or to remove the ob­ stacles to, the accession to equality of the immigrants. The French were not, of course, oblivious to the existence of cases of migrant abuse. Only through willful deceit could one deny the cruelty and brutality which were the everyday fare of thousands of foreigners. Perhaps the two most spec­ tacular instances of this type involved the "merchants of sleep," unscrupulous landlords preying on foreigners, and the smugglers who brought illegal immigrants into France. These persons were roundly condemned by officialdom, but on the whole the campaigns against them were ineffective.28 In addition to the empirical question of the extent of ra­ cial discrimination, French decision makers were deterred from passing new legislation because of the belief that all citizens were protected equally by the French law. If Britain lacked a tradition of guaranteeing equality before the law and therefore hesitated to pass a civil rights act, France possessed such a strong and cherished tradition that she believed such a law would be redundant. Prime Minister Pierre Messmer was not necessarily attempting to dodge the issue when he responded to a question about racial discrimination in France with a constitutional recitation: "In France equality is independent of nationality. All those who work here possess equal rights."29 Having decided to pass antidiscrimination legislation, however, the government made no attempt to develop a 28 Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe, p. 288. 29 Le Monde, 6 October 1973.

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structure for dealing with relations between the races in the community. There seem to me to be two primary explana­ tions for the lack of attraction such an alternative held for French decision makers. First, a community relations structure was incompatible with French administrative and political centralization and dirigisme. The community relations ideology essentially calls for a local, decentralized effort. It tends to see the problem, and the solution, in local communities and not in the gov­ ernmental centers. It creates a series of parallel structures that enjoy a good deal of autonomy and, though appointed by the government, are essentially groups of private citizens. The French, of course, have never been shy about trans­ gressing the boundary between the public and private spheres, but the spectacle of a series of local decision-mak­ ing bodies scattered about France pursuing programs only tenuously coordinated and directed from Paris was clearly undesirable. There is no evidence that such an alternative was ever seriously considered.30 The second explanation for the French neglect of a com­ munity relations perspective on discrimination is related to French notions of the social laws of interaction between racial and ethnic groups. This may be best understood through an examination of the concept of the "threshold of tolerance" (seuil de tolerance). This idea grew out of the theories of social scientists but became one of the working assumptions of French policy makers and a large sector of the general public.31 Its widespread acceptance had im­ portant consequences for policy, since the basic idea of the threshold of tolerance is that beyond a certain minimum the very presence of foreigners in any society invariably leads 30 Edmond-Smith. She points out that the British and American experiences appeared to have been ignored by those responsible for drawing up the French legislation. 31 Just two articles which uncritically accept the threshold con­ cept as a universal law are Phillipe Boucher, "Le risque"; and G. Marin, P. Bois, and J.-L. Meteye, 'Travailleurs immigres."

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

to social conflict. In general the threshold of tolerance was considered to be between 10 and 30 per cent—if the pro­ portion of foreigners reached or surpassed that level, trouble was inevitable. No government official ever spoke in more detail about the seuil de tolerance than Michel Massenet and it is worth closely examining his views since he was surely the most influential civil servant in the immigration field. Massenet believed, first of all, that the threshold of tolerance was not just some sociological theory or hypothesis, but was a law of social interaction. The tendency for the native population to reject newcomers after they constituted a certain propor­ tion of the total population was not simply a process that occasionally occurred or that might occur: It is not a theory born in a research laboratory, it is an empirical fact, which leads us to observe, first in a very irregular manner, then in a more regular fashion, that certain phenomena unfold almost automatically, no mat­ ter which Frenchmen compose the host population, no matter which foreigners make up the newcomers.32 Massenet credited the discovery of these laws of social behavior to Levi-Strauss, Jean Sevier, and Dominique Zahan, all ethnologists specializing in the study of primitive societies. The exact dynamics of the phenomenon are not clear, but Massenet suggests that when sufficient numbers of outsiders are present they establish communication net­ works. This incipient organization is observed by the native population and as a result the latter become conscious of their own in-group status. It is sufficient for the foreigners to establish a "coherent group" within the population to do irreparable damage to the social fabric. Massenet realized that speaking in such crude terms as "30 per cent of the total population" was unlikely to allow 32

"Pour une politique de !'immigration," p. 4.

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precise prediction since it was the concentration and distribu­ tion of the minority in particular locations, and the resulting social interaction, that determined the outcome. Conse­ quently, he had developed rules of thumb to guide policy on race relations in very different settings. In the school, for example, when the foreign population constitutes 20 per cent of the student body, the aggregate achievement level of the entire school suffers. The solution, incidentally, is not dispersal to ensure that no school has such high concentra­ tions of immigrants, but segregated (homogene) classes for young immigrants until they catch up. In public housing projects, let three or four families of foreigners move into a building and a "disequilibrium will be observed among the children." In the hospital service, "neither the medical staff, nor the French patients react when there are 2, 5, 10, 15, 20% foreigners, even if they are of the same nationality. Automatically, when this per­ centage approaches 28, 29, 30%, one observes new phe­ nomena."33 This dynamic of rejection is an autonomous social proc­ ess that can be manipulated only imperfectly. Massenet does suggest a number of interventionist strategies—the seg­ regated classroom for young students, conscious organiza­ tion of children's play groups, reorganization of the hospital service. "But," he warns, "in the absence of specific action, the phenomenon of rejection occurs almost automatically."34 The acceptance of these notions by members of the policy­ making elite had major consequences for both the immigra­ tion and race relations programs. With respect to immigra­ tion regulation, the idea that culturally and racially diverse groups could not exist peacefully side by side was one of the intellectual underpinnings of the policy of selection. The threshold of tolerance seems like an idea in near-total con­ tradiction to traditional French views of the endless absorp­ tive capacity of the nation. In fact, it is compatible, given 33 Ibid.

34

Ibid.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

French assumptions about the necessity for the minority to acquire the French language and culture. Only a fully as­ similated minority would not activate processes of rejection. When it became clear that certain of the migrant groups, especially those from North Africa, were not going to under­ go "Francization," the obvious conclusion was that they should no longer be admitted. The notion that the size of the minority community is related to the attitudes of the host society is a familiar one in the United States and Britain. But in neither of these countries has it been accorded the status of a veritable law of nature, rather than the tentative and imprecise hypothesis that it is. The acceptance of the inevitability of racial con­ flict became something of a self-denying prophecy in France. The government began to take measures to head off the im­ migration of nonwhite workers before their numbers could approach the danger level at the threshold of tolerance. When Giscard halted all immigration in 1974, foreigners made up less than 7 per cent of the total population and non-Europeans only about 2½ per cent. It may be states­ manship to anticipate and avoid incipient social crises, but one must wonder if the government did not overreact and if the threshold of tolerance did not provide a useful means by which politicians could escape responsibility for racial tensions in France. The uses of the theory were not confined to public offi­ cials, either. In the field of race relations, the implication of the threshold was that individual prejudice was not the core of the problem. There was no racial problem, strictly speak­ ing—there was merely a problem of ethnic relations. The opinions of M. Lanier, Prefect of Val-de-Marne, while per­ haps not typical, were common: I refute the charge of racism against French workers. In fact, they are not racists, but, when a particular threshold is passed it provokes rejection, as when, in the human body, certain substances are present in too great a quan-

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

tity. In reality, racism occurs (and it is not racism, it is a very healthy reaction in my opinion) because of an un­ conscious equilibrium (yes, very healthy!).35 The only appropriate response to such a situation was to take steps to control immigration, in the first instance, and to intervene to ensure that concentrations of foreigners did not develop in particular communities or settings. Economic exigencies (such as the need for migrant workers in certain industries) meant that concentrations were unavoidable, but the government could take steps to prevent foreigners from becoming too visible in particular schools, hospitals, or housing projects. The efforts of community groups, or pro­ fessional good-will officers to persuade the French to be tolerant and understanding would be naive and meaningless in the face of these formidable laws of social interaction. In­ tervention from the top was the only reasonable course, given these assumptions. Conclusion

Many people in France and Britain began with rather grand ideals of the value and possibility of creating multi­ racial societies. Differing in content and style, the two visions entailed a common acceptance by all groups of the basic norms and values of the society. Not surprisingly, these were to be the values of the dominant groups and the mi­ norities, as the price of their acceptance, were required to divest themselves of much of their cultural heritage. When evidence appeared that certain groups were either unwilling or unable to assimilate, policy makers in the two countries groped for some new pattern of accommodation. That process is still going on, and whether it will arrive at solu­ tions suitable for both minority and majority is far from certain. In Britain, a limited conception of the legitimacy of cul­ tural pluralism is developing for those blacks already resid35

Ibid., p. 6.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

ing there, but British leaders have basically admitted that the goal of multiracialism was hopelessly unrealistic, that the immigration of large numbers of blacks in the past was a grievous error, and that the best that one can hope for is an uneasy and fragile truce until the passage of time can do its healing work. In France, a profound doubt that cul­ turally and racially divergent groups can live together in peace has produced a racially discriminatory immigration policy and a disavowal of the goal of multiracialism. In all of this there are ominous signs that the dilemmas posed by the clash of immigration and citizenship are incapable of resolution by the liberal, democratic regimes of the West. Since the theory of such systems allows, even encourages, the existence of racially and culturally distinct groups, and since there is no evidence that systems of a different type are any more successful with minorities, this is a profoundly unsettling observation. SOCIAL WELFARE AND THE IMMIGRANT

The measures enacted to provide for the welfare needs of migrants followed from the immigration policy and race re­ lations approach adopted in France and Britain. The instru­ ments of welfare policy were intermediate, designed to deal with the problems of housing, health, and education brought about by immigration and to facilitate the realization of the integration goals of the regime. As was the case with race relations programs, the effectiveness of welfare measures was often attenuated by changes in immigration procedures. The living conditions of French migrants remained deplor­ able in spite of efforts to improve them, primarily because such large numbers were entering the country illegally or unofficially. As British policy moved toward tighter and tighter controls, the case for expanded social services for immigrants was actually weakened, contrary to official rhetoric which used improved welfare as the justification for controls.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

The multitude of programs that have been employed in the two countries in the areas of reception, health, jobtraining, language-training, education, social security, and housing are too complex to be given a full treatment in this work. Rather, I would like to discuss the welfare approach of France and Britain in general terms, organizing the ma­ terials around a few central issues and drawing on examples from the various types of programs to illustrate the similari­ ties and differences in the two cases. One of the most important policy questions posed by im­ migration was whether it would be proper or necessary to create separate and new governmental institutions, agencies, or programs to deal with the problems of the newcomers. This dilemma was particularly salient with respect to the immediate needs of the migrant upon arrival—finding a job and accommodation, for example—but it was also relevant to longer-term, social welfare programs. The British and French answers to this question were very different. Britain—From Universalism to Positive Discrimination

British policy makers shrank from developing welfare programs or agencies with specific responsibility for mi­ grants. The reasons for this posture appear to have been the cost involved in new measures, the possible adverse political reaction to appearing to give preferential treatment to immi­ grants, the ideological predisposition of liberals to oppose nonuniversalistic programs, and the belief that such drastic steps were not necessary. Eventually, however, a limited ac­ ceptance of the need for the special provision of services and even compensatory efforts developed, although it was masked normally by shifting the target of policy from the "immigrant" to areas of "social deprivation." In the early stages of the immigration, British officials operated on the assumption that, while immigrants might initially experience some difficulty in adjusting to their new surroundings, this problem resulted from the novelty of the situation and would be resolved by the simple passage of

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

time. This perspective placed primary emphasis on those things the immigrant himself must do in order to adapt to the host society. The latter was required to do nothing but exercise bemused tolerance and good-humored patience. Those services of reception, information, and counseling that were necessary were provided primarily through vol­ untary organizations. In the long term, it was assumed, the existing services of the British welfare state would adequately care for the needs of immigrants as it did for native citizens. There was a very strong feeling that the creation of any special programs or facilities for immigrants, or the provi­ sion of advantages in the acquisition of existing services would constitute reverse discrimination. The British po­ litical leadership perceived a latent groundswell of opposi­ tion to such steps and repeatedly warned against them. Those acts which were taken were carefully distinguished from preferential treatment. In defending the Race Rela­ tions Act 1968, a Labour Party Information Paper insists that the law "will not establish a privileged class of people. It does no more than remove disadvantages and insure equality of opportunity to all citizens irrespective of race or colour."36 At the 1965 Conservative Party Conference a resolution was offered which, accepting the need for immi­ gration restriction, urged that "this must be coupled with positive and wide-ranging measures for the integration of existing immigrants in the fields of housing, education, em­ ployment, and the social services, backed up by the generous resources of the central government."37 One speaker who op­ posed the resolution argued that if there is any show of preference given to coloured peo­ ple, this will cause a reaction among the white people. The fact that we are up against here is that the white people are rather reluctant to accept the coloured people 36 Labour Party Research Department, "Notes on Immigration/ Race Relations," Information Paper 18, p. 14. 37 Conservative Party Conference Report, p. 33.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

as equals, and they are certainly not willing to accept them as people who have some measure of preference over them in housing and the like.38 The motion was carried only after Peter Thorneycroft, Con­ servative Spokesman on Immigration, assured the conference that action must be taken to assist "impacted areas," but "not . . . to give special help to immigrants—this would in­ deed cause a good deal of ill feeling—but to give special help to some areas where this problem is at its greatest and most difficult."39 It was in the field of housing that the aversion to special measures was most intense. No accommodations were built specifically for the use of immigrants, nor was a proportion of council housing allotted for their use. Instead, they were required to get in line with everyone else. Because of the long waiting lists, this meant that only a very few immigrants would acquire such housing. According to the 1966 Sample Census, for example, in the London conurbation 22.2 per cent of all English citizens lived in council housing while only 4.2 per cent of nonwhite immigrants did so.40 Although the government was loath to create programs which might be interpreted as giving preferential treatment to immigrants, it did recognize that their presence in large numbers constituted an additional burden on the local au­ thorities within whose jurisdiction they resided. Even this awareness was slow in coming—the reader will recall from chapter 3 that it was local officials struggling to deal with the settlement of immigrants who first pressed the central authorities to come to their aid. Out of this process the no­ tion of "impacted areas" to which Thorneycroft alluded in the quotation above, and a series of governmental measures to assist such areas, emerged. The most important of these were the Urban Programme, the Education Priority Area program, and the Local Gov38 40

39 Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 40. Elizabeth Burney, "Housing," p. 99.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

ernment Grants (Social Needs) Act of 1969. All of these programs involved the granting of funds from the national treasury to local governments and educational authorities which could demonstrate special problems or burdens. There has always been some ambiguity whether these prob­ lems were thought to arise simply from the presence of con­ centrations of immigrants or if they were the result of some more general concept of social deprivation. The fact that the two phenomena tended to occur in conjunction only added to the confusion. Deakin argues with reference to the Urban Programme that "those responsible for devising the programme had always intended that it should be directed towards those in need, not towards immigrants as such."41 This may be put too strongly since policy makers had po­ litical incentives to avoid identifying the project with immi­ grants and since the issue of immigration was both empiri­ cally and intellectually linked to the question of urban decay in British political debate. But there can be no doubt that by 1968 the problem of dealing with immigrant welfare became more or less incorporated in a more comprehensive policy discussion that concerned the legitimacy of positive discrimination and the utility of compensatory schemes for eradicating poverty. This argument drew its inspiration first of all from a series of academic and policy studies of the impact of home and neighborhood on the academic achieve­ ment of children—work done both in Britain and the U.S. The culmination of these studies was the Plowden Report, issued in 1966, which strongly recommended a program of compensatory education for children from culturally de­ prived backgrounds.42 A second impetus to a reexamination of programs to deal with deprivation was the evolution of the War on Poverty 41

Deakin, "The Government," p. 396. Howard Glennerster and Stephen Hatch, "Strategy Against In­ equality?" in their pamphlet, Positive Discrimination and Inequality, p. 1. See the article by Michael Meacher for an informative critique of programs of positive discrimination. 42

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

in the United States.43 In particular, the idea of positively discriminating in favor of those areas suffering from the worst social deprivation became rather fashionable. A Labour Party discussion paper written in 1969 argues that one of the lessons of the last decade is that providing universally available services and benefits is not enough. We must positively discriminate in favor of the poor and the handicapped, the deprived, the homeless, and the so­ cial casualties of our society. It is not a matter of choos­ ing betwen universal and selective welfare services. It is a question of providing a basic structure of universal serv­ ices on which various additional selective services can be added.44 A measure of the degree to which this strategy had pene­ trated the administrative apparatus can be taken from the testimony of Home Office Ministers to the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration in 1970-1971. A. R. Isserlis, Under-Secretary at the Home Office, would not rule out measures of positive discrimination in the field of hous­ ing: As far as the Home Office is concerned, positive dis­ crimination . . . is something which is inevitably likely to give rise to difficulties which must be considered in the circumstances of each area where it is proposed. But the Home Office is not committed against the principle of positive discrimination in all circumstances regardless of the nature of them.45 The first major program which sought to put these newly embraced principles into action was the Urban Programme and the associated Community Development Projects. In 43

Deakin, "The Government." Labour Party, National Executive Committee, "Labour's Social Strategy," p. 13, mimeo. 45 House of Commons, Housing, Vol. II, Evidence, p. 7 (emphasis added). 44

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

launching the former, in May 1968, Harold Wilson said "expenditure must be on the basis of need, and the immi­ gration problem is only one factor . . . in the assessment of social need."46 The project was divided into phases—in the first, thirty-four local authorities were invited to apply for aid, with the emphasis on providing nursery education, day nurseries, and children's homes. During the second stage, all local authorities could apply and projects included play groups and financing voluntary bodies. The third phase in­ volved grants of 4.4 million pounds. In his appraisal of the effects of the program, Holman notes that (1) the grants are not necessarily directed to the areas with most severe need, but rather go to the most aggressive local authorities; and (2) that no projects may be initiated without local authority approval. He argues that the government has failed to develop clear-cut criteria of what constitutes "social need," and has been ambiguous about the central goals of the program. In a critique reminiscent of discussion of the American poverty program he chastises the government for appearing to assume that the cause of social deprivation lies with material or physical deficiencies of the individual, while he thinks, on the contrary, that it stems primarily from their powerlessness. He argues, consequently, that the govern­ ment should fund the social and political movements of the poor.47 France—The Specialized Approach

It is surprising that the French government, which is less hospitable than the British to the idea of cultural pluralism, nevertheless has adopted a number of specialized programs for migrant workers and their families. The reasons for this tactic seem to be (1) the recognition that the migrant situaMRace Today 3:7 (1971), p. 227. Robert Holman, "Urban Programme Appraised." See also Robert Holman, ed., Socially Deprived Families in Britain, and J. B. Cullingworth, Social Content oj Planning, pp. 31-33, 101-102, 140141. 47

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

tion involves peculiar problems needing specialized solu­ tions, (2) the fact that the migrants may be in France only temporarily, and (3) the belief that such particularistic pro­ grams will facilitate the integration of the immigrants. That is, the French approach in no way involves a recognition of the legitimacy of minority claims for autonomy or status. It is designed either to foster the acquisition of a French style of life or to compensate for the denial of the opportunity to assimilate. The rationale for specific measures in the case of Al­ gerian immigrants has been explored by Massenet. He ob­ serves first of all that such programs are not designed to abolish any legal discrimination, as they have been in cer­ tain countries. Immigrants have all the rights and duties of citizens (this is, of course, an exaggeration in even a strict legal sense). The public authorities, he goes on, tolerate no discrimination and they pay special attention to this aspect of the migrants' sojourn in the mdtropole. But, the immi­ grants themselves arrive with certain handicaps—illiteracy, lack of language facility, etc.—which cause problems for them. "The only reason for the existence of specialized so­ cial programs," he concludes, "is, therefore, in order to de­ vise a remedy for the gap that initially exists between the social level of the workers who disembark at Marseilles, coming from their far away villages, and the average social level of the workers of the metropole."iS According to a study published in 1969, France had the most elaborate and "open" facilities for the reception, train­ ing, and settling of new immigrants of the European coun­ tries.40 It must be pointed out, however, that because of the large proportion of migrants who entered France under their own auspices, the effectiveness of these reception facilities must be questioned. This reservation applies to French pol­ icy in the field of housing, too. 48 Michel Massenet and Justiniac De Serres, "Action sociale pour Ies Francais-Musulmans d'Algerie en metropole," p. 7. 49 Arnold Rose, Migrants in Europe, p. 90.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

The primary policy instrument that has been fashioned by French officials in the immigration field is what may be called the mixed-welfare association, of which the Social Ac­ tion Fund (FAS) is the prototype. Its essential elements are these: 1. It is a quasi-public agency, created by the state but exercising programmatic autonomy and enjoying independ­ ent access to funds; 2. It does its work through private business and volun­ tary agencies, serving as a stimulus and financial induce­ ment to private action much in the style of the French Plan; 3. Its Board of Directors reflects the multidimensionality of the immigration issue with representatives from the Of­ fice of the Prime Minister, the Ministries of Finance, Social Affairs, and Labor, and the Social Security Administration. There has never been any suggestion that FAS, ONI, or any other immigrant-related agency should have representatives of the migrant community on their boards. FAS has been most active in the field of housing. Its achievements have been rather meager, however. By 1968 the organization could claim to have participated in the provision of only 60,000 beds which could take care of less than 5 per cent of all foreign workers in France.50 Yet hous­ ing· accounted for 81.7 per cent of FAS's total expenditure in 1967.51 Since housing is the single most glaring social de­ ficiency suffered by immigrants, there have been periodic calls for a vastly increased effort. The Fifth Plan, for ex­ ample, recommended the construction of 65,000 new sleep­ ing accommodations for single foreign workers each year. But as two students of the problem have observed this has not been even remotely achieved.52 Despite the less than munificent scale of the program, it is significant that the country with the most severe shortage of decent housing in Western Europe could undertake the construction of units specifically for foreigners. Such a ven50 Castles and Kosack, p. 247. si Ibid., p. 25 6 .

52

Ibid., p. 255.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE

ture would have been unthinkable in Britain. Ironically, it was the fact that the migrants were foreigners and seen to be temporary workers (especially the single men) that made the provision of simple, dormitory-style accommodation seem reasonable. Such structures kept the workers to them­ selves and took them off the regular housing market where they would have competed with Frenchmen. The British immigrant, with the status of a permanent resident, pos­ sessed a legal equality that would have made the construc­ tion of special housing either "preferential" treatment, un­ palatable to the indigenous population, or segregationist and discriminatory treatment, unacceptable to the immigrants themselves. The fact that almost all of the activities of the Social Action Fund were financed through monies withheld from the family assistance grants going to migrants whose families did not reside in France also gave the French pro­ gram the appearance of being self-supporting. The French went one step further, though, and reserved a certain pro­ portion of public housing for immigrants and guaranteed (with minor reservations) all migrants officially residing in bidonvilles places in public housing when they were cleared.53 In the field of education, the government has also operat­ ed through private agencies who are contracted with to pro­ vide services. For example, the state will provide a language instructor to any organization wishing to set up a class to teach French to immigrants providing a minimum number of students is guaranteed. If the French proclivity to develop specialized agencies and programs to deal with immigrant needs is at odds with the British response, in one respect their policies appear to be converging. By the end of 1974 the French government had begun to develop an urban-centered policy akin to the British Urban Programme. The French venture involves, as 53 The French developed an administrative norm that the propor­ tion of immigrants would be kept below 15 per cent in any public housing project. Castles and Kosack, p. 306.

RACE RELATIONS AND WELFARE was pointed out in chapter 3, a series of cooperative projects between the national government and those urban areas most directly affected by immigration. Unlike their British coun­ terparts, French officials have made no attempt to dissociate the new policy from the immigration problem. On the con­ trary, the burden caused by the concentration of foreign workers is the explicit rationale for national-local coopera­ tion. CONCLUSION In this chapter, I have tried to draw together some of the primary ideas, values, and concerns that have guided public policy in the three important fields of immigration regulation and control, racial discrimination and equality, and social welfare. In doing so I have tended to ignore strictly eco­ nomic explanations of policy decisions. But only if a careful statement of the character of the labor market is made can the striking differences in policy and approach which I have described be appreciated fully. Measures of the state of the labor market can be taken as a base line against which to evaluate how far policy has deviated from a purely economic strategy.54 54 For an interesting illustration of the logic of controlling for "systemic effects" in evaluating the significance of choice in explain­ ing policy differences, see Douglas E. Ashford's paper, "French Prag­ matism and British Idealism."

CHAPTER 6

The Economic Context of Immigration Policy

THIS study has placed considerable emphasis on the political and social issues raised by migration and especially on the way in which governmental decision makers approach the subject. In doing so it has risked appearing naive about eco­ nomic matters. This is especially true when the apparent mo­ tivations, perceptions, and beliefs of policy makers do not always fit what one would expect, given the seemingly un­ deniable objective functions of immigration in advanced economies. The argument presented in this chapter is de­ signed to fill in a number of lacunae which may have ap­ peared in the preceding narrative. Nevertheless, the thrust of the chapter is to elucidate the relationship between eco­ nomic reality and the behavior of political decision makers. The evidence suggests, I believe, that a preoccupation with the ideas and perspectives of these individuals does not necessarily lead to the mystification of policy, but puts flesh and bones on the functions it performs for the political system at large. The first task of this discussion is to assess the actual and perceived costs and benefits of immigration. What is the evidence of the impact of foreign labor on the British and French economies? Has it been on the whole a boon to these countries or a worrisome burden? These questions pose a number of thorny, controversial issues on which there is substantial disagreement among professional economists. In order to provide even a partially satisfying discussion of these issues, it will be necessary to draw on the works of economists who have tried to measure accurately the out­ comes of migration.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT The discussion will be considerably complicated by the fact that it will be based on official definitions of immigra­ tion, which in France will exclude Algerians, for example, from government statistics for years before 1964. For Brit­ ain, the bulk of research concentrates on the impact of Com­ monwealth immigration, even though the Irish are the most numerous single immigrant group. I will deal at times with the overall effect of immigration (net immigration) and at times with the impact of Commonwealth immigration, trying in each instance to make the context of the argument clear. The second task of this chapter is to ask whether the governments of France and Britain were cognizant of the economic ramifications of immigration, and whether they chose to emphasize these rather than other aspects of the phenomenon. That is, to what degree was immigration per­ ceived in terms of its effect on the economic goals of the government and how far was it consciously employed as an instrument of economic policy? This discussion will attempt to show the value of immi­ gration from the point of view of the capitalist economy. It is not intended to imply that an economically oriented policy is superior to one which ignores questions of profit and loss. Economic values are not the only, nor necessarily the most important, ends which may be served by public policy. Fur­ thermore, one must ask whose economic interests are at stake. The next chapter will look at socialist and labororiented critiques of the political economy of immigration policy. THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF IMMIGRATION Immigration and Growth—The Industrial Reserve Army There are two principal schools of thought about the ef­ fect of immigration on European growth rates. One leading student of the question, Charles P. Kindleberger, has argued that the availability of an accessible labor supply was the key factor in Europe's amazing economic performance since

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

1950 and that immigration was one of the major sources of such labor. On the other hand, E. J. Mishan and his asso­ ciates have contended that immigration may have unclear or even negative consequences on growth rates.1 Without going into the technicalities of the disagreements between these two positions, it is possible to isolate the primary means by which immigration, if it does facilitate growth, would do so. According to Kindleberger, postwar immigration to Eu­ rope has fed economic growth by relieving labor-supply bottlenecks, holding down wages, at least relatively, and serving as a counterinflationary force. It is clear that if the Kindleberger thesis is correct, migrant workers have played the role in postwar Europe of a new industrial reserve army, as he himself believes.2 Marx argued that capitalist expan­ sion depended upon the availability of a large pool of unem­ ployed, highly mobile workers. These laborers could be used to man both new industries into which capital was being in­ vested and old ones which had been abandoned but which high profits now made operable once again. In either case there would be no diminution of the active work force in other industries. He concluded that such a reserve army was normally provided through overpopulation. Besides being the means by which capital could expand into new branches of production, the reserve army helped regulate the wages of the active industrial work force. Rather than being the result of variation in the absolute number of the laboring population, as was the interpretation of classical economists, wages were determined by the "varying proportions in which the working class is divided into active and reserve army. . . ."3 1 Kindleberger, Europe's Post-War Growth; Mishan, "Does Immi­ gration Confer Economic Benefits on the Host Country?" pp. 89-122; and E. J. Mishan and L. Needleman, "Immigration, Excess Aggregate Demand and the Balance of Payments." 2 "Mass Migration—Then and Now," p. 647. See also Antony Ward, "European Capitalism's Reserve Army," pp. 18-31. 3 Karl Marx, Capital, I, p. 699.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The industrial reserve army thesis raises several important questions. The first is whether in fact migrant workers have performed the functions of a reserve army for the econo­ mies of France and Britain. The second is whether the gov­ ernments and employers of the two countries actually sought to oversupply their labor markets as a means of spurring economic expansion. The answer to the first question ap­ pears to be a qualified yes with reference to France and a qualified no in the case of Britain. This discussion will in­ volve a consideration of migrant labor's effect on the labor supply, wage levels, and inflation. IMMIGRATION AND LABOR SUPPLY

Kindleberger, in his comprehensive study of labor supply and growth in Europe, concludes that France is the most conspicuous exception to the general pattern he discovers among the other European nations. He finds, for example, that until about 1957 the French economy grew at a substan­ tial rate (gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 4.6 per cent between 1954 and 1959), even though there were severe labor shortfalls (the active labor force grew at compound annual percentage rates of only 0.1 per cent from 1949 to 1959). Kindleberger attributes this anomaly to the effects of French planning which put relatively scarce re­ sources to efficient use. As Kindleberger expresses it: "Where the Plan has been responsible for the great efficiency of postwar growth has been in its policy, applied empirically rather than by general directives, of fostering larger and in general more efficient productive units."4 Kindleberger goes on to point out, however, that despite their apparent success at overcoming the disadvantages of limited labor supplies French officials began in about 1956 to increase the size of the labor force markedly. This was accomplished by sizable increments of immigration, by the 4 Europe's Post-War Growth, p. 60. The figures on growth and labor force rates are taken from Tables II-I and II-2 in Kindleberger, pp. 25 and 27, respectively.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

return of thousands of colons from Algeria, and by a rising birth rate. From about 1957 to 1963, when the onset of inflation led to a slowing of growth, the French case tends, therefore, to fit the reserve army thesis (gross domestic product grew at 5.8 per cent per year from 1959 to 1963). After that year, however, growth was slowed, though the labor supply continued to increase. This was a matter of deliberate government policy, as Kindleberger points out.5 There can be little doubt that French decision makers be­ lieved that foreign manpower was essential to growth. In France, it was those individuals around the Commissariat General du Plan who were the most consistent advocates of a program of planned immigration. Beginning with the First Plan in 1946 and continuing into the 1970s, these individuals constantly reiterated the same theme: France does not have sufficient manpower to support a thriving and growing in­ dustrial economy. The Commissariat thought that a good deal of this shortage was the result of the inefficient use of the human capital that was available in France and accord­ ingly it advised that the labor supply should be put to bet­ ter use; but in the main it argued that France had no choice but to make massive use of imported labor. The designers of the Plan foresaw that in the second half of 1946 and in 1947 France would be 980,000 workers short of the num­ ber needed to help spur economic recovery. The problem appeared to be chronic, for the Third Plan concluded that France would need 360,000 foreign workers by 1961: "The recourse to immigration should be seen, therefore, not as a palliative which will permit the resolution of certain pass­ ing crises, but as an indispensable contribution to the realiza­ tion of the objectives of the Third Plan."6 In his 1966 review of French immigration, Pierre Bide5 See

ibid., ch. 2, esp. pp. 57-68. Commissariat General du Plan, Premier Rapport de la Com­ mission de la Main-d'oeuvre, for observations on the First Plan; and for the Third Plan, Commissariat General du Plan, "L'immigration dans Ie Troisieme Plan," p. 12. 6 See

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

berry, at that time the head of ONI, concluded that "immi­ gration has contributed a great deal toward starting up our economy and, then, toward its expansion."7 Likewise, the Employment Commission of the Sixth Plan, after reviewing the arguments over the contribution of immigration to the growth of productivity concluded: In certain cases, immigration is the substitute for a policy of investment; but in other cases it alone permits the de­ velopment of production which would otherwise be blocked by the lack of available labor, whatever strategy might be adopted.8 As to the effect of migration on the British labor supply, Kindleberger has written of the tight labor market in Britain which led to rises in prices during expansionary episodes in 1951, 1955, 1960, and 1964. Had more abundant labor been available, he implies, the tightened monetary and fiscal policy characteristic of British "stop-go" management could have been avoided.9 The results of the British case then seem to suggest that because net immigration was low (the outcome of high emigration of Britons during the period), the growth of the economy was stunted. » This view was echoed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) examining com­ mittee which surveyed British manpower policies in 1968. In attempting to explain why British growth rates lagged be­ hind those of her European neighbors in the postwar era the committee concluded that "to a great extent this seems due to the manpower situation, in that the United Kingdom 7 "Bilan

de vingt annees d'immigration, 1946-1966," p. 24. Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de l'Emploi, Emploi, II, 50. 9 Europe's Post-War Growth, p. 77. The year 1964 is the turning point in British immigration. That year there was a net outward mi­ gration of 60,000 persons, the first time the immigration balance sheet had been negative. It continued to be so. From mid-1971 to mid-1972 there was a net emigration of about 44,000. See John Simons, "Great Britain." 8

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

started this period with practically no easily available man­ power reserves."10 The committee placed its emphasis on an "active" manpower policy, stressed Britain's lack of ex­ cess rural manpower, and almost completely skirted the ob­ vious question of immigration, merely remarking cryptically that "in some countries the possibility of promoting expan­ sion through immigration may be less than during the last decade."11 The truth is, of course, that Britain did have "easily avail­ able" reserves in the Commonwealth but chose to close them off. To a surprising degree, the economic conse­ quences of a restrictive immigration policy were rarely dis­ cussed by those who supported and instituted such a course of action. Furthermore, the proponents of open or relatively free immigration did not usually defend their position with economic arguments. For a time immediately after the war it looked as if Britain might actively encourage foreign labor as a means toward economic recovery. Britain "was suffering from criti­ cal labour shortages in many of her essential industries and services"12 in 1945. In what was then and is still a policy curiously out of character with standard practice, British policy makers embarked on a number of recruitment schemes to bring in foreign workers to fill these vacancies. The government had already cautiously allowed over 100,000 members of the Polish Forces to remain in the country after the war. In addition, it created the "Bait Cygnet" program which recruited women from the Baltic countries to work in British hospitals; set up the "Westward Ho" plan for bringing men and women of various nationali­ ties to work in several labor-deficient industries; and, finally, instituted a scheme for settling Ukrainian prisoners of war in Britain. Besides these programs of permanent settlement, there were a number of plans for the temporary recruitment 10

Manpower Policy in the United Kingdom, p. 135. Ibid., p. 140. 12 J. A. Tannahill, European Voluntary Workers in Britain. 11

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

of foreign workers, mostly women (10,000 German women in the "North Sea" program and 2,000 Austrian women in the "Blue Danube" plan) but also men (5,000 Italian men and women also came in this period) .13 These policy ventures are fascinating because of what they tell us about the British attitude toward immigration and the labor situation generally. Although lack of man­ power in certain key industries (textiles, agriculture, and mining) and in the hospital service was a severe problem, the government resorted to the use of foreign workers re­ luctantly, after considerable agonizing, and under an extraor­ dinary set of circumstances unlikely to be repeated. Al­ though the programs were generally deemed to have been a success, they were never repeated and the files were simply tucked away. The idea of recruiting foreign labor apparently originated in an interdepartmental meeting between the Ministries of Health and Labour in September 1945 which was devoted to the personnel crisis in the hospital service. The Ministry of Labour cautiously broached the possibility of such a program with the Foreign and Home Offices and, much to its surprise, received favorable responses, although the Home Office insisted that any agreements should pro­ vide for the easy repatriation of. the recruits once they were no longer needed. A Foreign Labour Committee was created within the Cabinet and it arranged the details of the "Bait Cygnet" plan.14 There was still little inclination to extend this idea to other sources of foreign labor or to other British industries, how­ ever. A number of outside pressures were needed to con­ vince officials that new programs were called for. For one, the representatives of the cotton industry were anxious over lack of manpower in the textile factories and sent a delega­ tion to Germany to explore the possibility of employing 13

Ibid., pp. 19-31. pp. 19-21. The Control Commission for Germany refused to give the Home OiRce assurances that everyone could be expelled as soon as the government decided, however. 14Ibid.,

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

German women. They came back convinced that the gov­ ernment should begin to exploit those labor reserves im­ mediately. In addition, the United Nations Relief and Re­ habilitation Administration suggested that Britain might wish to provide jobs for displaced persons, to which the official reply was that they were more likely to be resettled "on the mountains of the moon."15 This rather inexplicable and illconsidered response apart, other events converged to change official thinking rather quickly. The need to remove displaced persons from Austria in order to force the USSR to sign the Austrian Peace Treaty led the Foreign Office to view new recruitment with favor. The Home Office was reluctantly convinced, therefore, to begin discussions of a new program to recruit workers for the cotton industry, but suddenly on December 10, 1946, a Cabinet decision was made to recruit both male and female workers from the Austrian and Ger­ man displaced persons camps and a personal letter from the Prime Minister "assigned the highest priority to this opera­ tion."16 Thus the "Westward Ho" scheme was born and along with it a sharp if brief change in British immigration policy. In January 1947 the government issued a White Paper on labor-management relations which stated that severe labor shortages in certain industries were "a standing threat to the employment of workers in other industries and services, who may find themselves without the fuel or raw materials on which their jobs depend."17 One month hence the Economic Survey of 1947 contained a surprisingly unambiguous state­ ment of policy: Foreign labour can make a useful contribution to our needs. The old arguments against foreign labour are no longer valid. There is no danger for years to come that foreign labour will rob British workers of their jobs. The Government intends to extend the recruitment of displaced persons from the Continent to work here [and] is prepared 16 Ibid., p. 23. 15 Ibid., p. 22. 17 Cmd. 7018, quoted in ibid., p. 24.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

to ensure that foreign labour will not be introduced into specific employment while British labour is available.18 Tannahill points out that there was almost no public or political opposition to these immigration proposals. Whether this was because of either the government's elaborate system of consultation with business and labor (through the Joint Industrial Councils) or of the carefully organized manner in which the plan was carried out is hard to say. Certainly suffi­ cient precautions were taken to quiet union fears—agree­ ments hammered out with union officials generally stipulated that foreigners would be employed only where there was no suitable British labor, that in cases of redundancy the for­ eigners would be the first to be let go, and that they would be paid at least minimum British wages and encouraged to affiliate with the trade unions. Despite the undeniable success of these early programs (at least from the point of view of the British economy), they were merely a brief interlude in a policy which was otherwise unenthusiastic about immigration. In fact, the postwar re­ cruitment schemes must be seen as exceptions to normal policy, undertaken in near-crisis circumstances, to meet very limited and highly specific goals. This was the way they were seen by government officials who never gained sufficient con­ fidence in the stability of the economy nor the cooperativeness of the trade unions to follow an aggressive immigration policy. Given the thinness of the government's analysis of the role foreign labor might play in British economic recovery, it is not surprising that the movement, both actual and potential, of citizens from the New Commonwealth was not greeted as an economic boon, in fact was not generally understood in terms relevant to the economy at all.19 18 Cmd.

7046, quoted in ibid., p. 24. near-total absence of public debate over economic issues in immigration has been discussed in Sheila Allen, "Race and the Econ­ omy," pp. 165-178. 19 The

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Occasionally one of the members of the two major parties took an economic approach to Commonwealth immigration, although it was the exception rather than the rule. In the 1964 Commons debate over renewal of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, Aubrey Brown, a Tory Back-Bencher, was the only participant to argue the economic merits of immi­ gration.20 And in 1965, George Brown, a member of the Labour Party Cabinet, said that "it is absolutely mad to talk about limiting immigration when Britain needs an expanding labour force. . . ."21 In general, neither the leaders of the Tory or Labour parties showed any appreciation or interest in the economic side of immigration. The Liberal Party did, however, take an explicit manpower approach to the immi­ gration issue. In 1965 the Immigration Group of the Liberal Party issued a report which took a strong position in favor of a strict manpower approach to the question of controls. Liberals had opposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act because they believed that the law was too inflexible and that it had been conceived without consultation with the Commonwealth governments. The report urged the govern­ ment to appoint a committee to study the relationship be­ tween future manpower needs and population trends in order to provide estimates "of the amount of immigrant labour which the economy will need and be able to absorb. These estimates should be made available to the Commonwealth High Commissions."22 The report goes on: We do not subscribe to the view that a reduction in immi­ gration levels is an answer to our problems. We consider that at present this country is quite capable of absorbing a net inward annual flow of 50,000 to 70,000 Common­ wealth immigrants.23 20

Economist, 21 November 1964. Ibid., 3 April 1965. 22 Liberal Party Research and Information Department, "Immigra­ tion," p. 18. 23 Ibid., p. 30.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

One year later the party adopted the essentials of this pro­ gram in the General Election of 1966 although it did not repeat the call for 70,000 new immigrants per year. The Manifesto suggested that the number of job vacancies in Britain and the skills possessed by potential migrants should be the only factors involved in setting limits to immigration.24 As a party, however, the Liberals had almost no influence on policy, and even less on the course of public debate. The Federation of British Industries (FBI), and its suc­ cessor in 1965, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), have played a minor role in the official debate over the con­ trol of Commonwealth immigration. The FBI apparently made no attempt to influence the outcome of the Common­ wealth Immigrants Bill in 1962 and there was no official statement by the CBI on the subject of immigration until 1967. Even then the organization's opinions were restricted to the question of race relations and discrimination in in­ dustry.25 Whether the organization's reticence is evidence of indifference, indecision, or simple unobtrusiveness is difficult to say. It does seem clear, however, that British industry was much less aggressive in the struggle over immigration than its French counterpart. Probably the most important and consistent proponent of the view that immigration could play a significant role in the British economy was the highly influential journal, the Econ­ omist. It opposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 196226 and scored the 1965 White Paper for having pandered to extremists and for doing nothing positive about the living conditions of immigrants already in Britain.27 In fact, through the years the Economist has been one of the most forthright and dependable spokesmen for the welfare of immigrants. In February 1965 the editors complained: 24

Liberal Party Election Manifesto, 1966. Rose et al., Colour and Citizenship, p. 319. For a general discussion of the role of the FBI and a brief summary of its successor, see Stephen Blank, Industry and Government in Britain. 26 Economist, 4 November 1961. 27 Ibid., 7 August 1965. 25EJ-B.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

There are now no discernible party policies on immigration except "Keep 'em down" and "Keep 'em out." . . . If British parties want to pretend that they have an immigra­ tion policy, and that they are acting (as they say they are) for the good of the immigrants themselves, they will have to start thinking about real schemes for new, integrated housing . . . about the social needs and welfare of the coloured people already here . . . about real money to be spent on special schools where immigrants present a tem­ porary language problem.28 Occasionally the journal justified its pleas on behalf of immigrants on humanitarian or liberal philosophical grounds.29 Primarily, however, the views of the Economist were frankly and openly based on economic considerations. The analysis of immigration which underlay their policies included first of all a recognition that Britain was experienc­ ing a labor shortage, despite all the talk of unemployment and overcrowding. After the publication of the 1965 White Paper the Economist concluded that it "is the British econ­ omy that must take most of the strain. Some informed guesses have indicated that the shortfall in the labour force will be as much as 300,000 by 1970."30 Given the need for new labor, the Economist thought that immigrants were the best and most useful source. This was because they were generally young, active, and had fewer than the normal number of dependents. In addition, they were "mobile" and were willing and even eager to move into areas where jobs were available.31 It was of course true that the British labor force was underutilized, but that was a separate question, since even in such a situation the addition of a large number of Commonwealth immigrants would still be beneficial. 28Ibid.,

13 February 1965. Ibid., 19 September 1964 and 10 July 1965. 30 Ibid., 7 August 1965. 31 Ibid., 24 June 1961; 7 August 1965. 20

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The journal was convinced, too, that what immigration had occurred had been a "net plus" for the British economy: Economically, this country has gained considerably from the free flow of West Indian labour into it: Under full employment the national income gains from the immigra­ tion of any active worker who is encumbered by less than the average number of non-working dependents. . . .32 The willingness to think in rather cold and empirical economic terms gave the pro-immigrant appeals of the Economist an ambiguous quality. The editors argued, for example, that immigrants should be given a share of new council housing, even if native Britons were already ahead of them on the lists, because such an action would improve the living conditions of migrants in Britain and put the country in a better competitive position to lure workers away from Germany and France. They seemed unable or un­ willing to admit the social tension that such a practice might create. Furthermore, it was sometimes difficult to tell if their indignant tirades against discrimination were sincere or merely expedient. In any event, the Economist was usually honest enough to disavow "wooly-headed idealism" and to argue that racism, whatever the other reasons one might oppose it, was uneconomical since it constituted an artificial restraint on the free movement of the factors of production. Despite its persistent efforts, however, the Economist was unable to raise the economic aspects of migration to more than a peripheral component of the public debate. If the British economy was chronically short of workers and if im­ migration from the Commonwealth was clearly a useful means of correcting this deficiency, government policy was not guided by these considerations, nor were they fully aired in Parliament or elsewhere. The degree to which immigrant workers have taken up the slack in the French and British economies is not simply a 32

Ibid., 24 June 1961.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

result of the number of vacancies and the number of immi­ grants. It is also the outcome of the fact that immigrants generally start work in certain sectors which are crucial, but chronically short of labor because of the distaste for them which is prevalent among European workers. On the whole, immigrant workers occupy the lowest paid, least attractive jobs. The data which were presented in chapter 2 (see Tables 7 and 8) indicate that immigrants tend to be concentrated in the nonmanual and semiskilled categories and that within these classifications they are found in the most dangerous, dirtiest, and least prestigious industries. This is less the case for Britain than for France, although even in Britain certain nationality groups, such as Jamaicans, fit this pattern. There is also evidence that foreign workers suffer greater job insecurity than do nationals and consequently exhibit higher rates of unemployment. The Employment Commission of the Sixth Plan writes that Algerian workers experienced an unemployment rate of 18 per cent in 1967 and that even when they obtain jobs they are evidently more vulnerable to dismissal than indigenous workers and are frequently forced into unemployment, all the more so because it is not rare for employers to dis­ charge a foreign worker before rehiring him in order to avoid according him certain advantages which accrue with seniority.33 The authors of Colour and Citizenship found that there is a positive correlation between unemployment rates in Britain and the proportion of the unemployed who are Common­ wealth immigrants. That is, in a period of rising unemploy­ ment, immigrants are more likely to lose their jobs than are indigenous workers.34 33 Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de I'Emploi, p. 56. 34Rose, p. 180; Castles and Kosack, pp. 87-93; Peter Wright, The Coloured Worker in British Industry.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

In addition, migrant workers are more willing to do shift work and put in overtime than are domestic workers. This is, in fact, one of the criticisms of migrants that is common within the labor movement. A spokesman for the building industry in France has commented that "experience proves that, if certain Frenchmen are repelled by the idea of work­ ing overtime, the heads of enterprises have a great deal of difficulty stopping their foreign workers from working over­ time. . . ."35 The Employment Commission of the Sixth Plan has shown that the "duration of work (per week) is posi­ tively related to the proportion of foreign workers in a sec­ tor."36 The information in this section is consistent with the argu­ ment that immigrant labor in postwar France and Britain had the character of an industrial reserve army in terms of its effect on the labor supply—it enabled the filling of posi­ tions that would otherwise have remained vacant. Because of their willingness to work long hours under very poor con­ ditions, and to move to available jobs, migrants gave em­ ployers a flexibility they would otherwise not have enjoyed. Nevertheless, the fit between the situation of the labor supply and growth rates is not perfect, as the case of France shows. Furthermore, the role of immigration in Britain was largely negative—it was the absence of a sizable net immigration that prevented British expansion—although those immigrant workers in Britain did exhibit many of the characteristics of a reserve army. French decision makers were well aware of the contribu­ tion immigration made to filling job vacancies in the economy and justified recruitment in these terms. With the exception of a few experimental schemes in the mid-forties, the British seemed to turn their back to the labor force possibilities in immigration and in general did not attempt to link policy to manpower requirements. 35 "Pour

une politique de !'immigration," p. 4. General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de VEmploi, p. 55. 36 Commissariat

ECONOMIC CONTEXT IMMIGRATION AND WAGE LEVELS

The effect of immigration on wages has always been one of the primary interests of labor movements. They have feared that immigrants would be used by owners to break strikes and to undercut wage demands. In order to avoid such an outcome, labor spokesmen have generally taken a restrictive view toward immigration. When they have seen it as inevitable, however, they have tried to set conditions for immigrant labor that would serve to protect those of national workers. The major demand has been one of equality of conditions between immigrant and domestic workers. This has derived not only from the egalitarian and socialist ideology that often characterizes labor movements but also from a fear that any advantage the indigenous working class might enjoy over immigrants would eventually be to the former's disadvantage. Only by ensuring that employers had to pay immigrants the same wage and offer them the same benefits and conditions could workers protect their own status. For their part, governments which have attempted to implement plans for the importation of labor have adhered to equality of condition, at least in principle. This was especially the case with the free movement provisions of the Treaty of Rome, and it was a means by which governments sought to guarantee the conditions of their workers abroad. It is not clear how effective such guarantees are. They do apparently keep the general wage level from declining, but they also appear to allow immigration to retard the rate at which the wages would have risen in the absence of immi­ gration.37 And the equality between the two work forces is not absolute. In France, foreign workers (excluding those from the EEC) are paid less than French workers in the same occupational categories for the first six months. Ac­ cording to Michel Massenet, the justification of such an ar­ rangement is that during that period their performance is apt to be inferior to that of the French worker as a consequence 37

Kindleberger, "Mass Migration—Then and Now."

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

of their lack of experience and training in industrial settings.38 M. Parion, the head of the patronal organization in the build­ ing industry, argues that this is both necessary and justifiable and that very quickly the foreign worker attains parity with the French worker.39 But the conclusions of the Employment Commission of the Sixth Plan are different. It reports that "in fact, the most reliable indications are that the difference in pay between national workers and foreign workers at the same job and with the same qualifications is between 10 and 20 per cent."40 This represents, of course, a considerable savings for the employer. It must be pointed out, in addition, that the strict rules of equality apply only to those foreign workers who have been legally and officially recruited into France and who possess the appropriate work permits and contracts. The wholesale evasion of these procedures which has character­ ized much of the postwar migration to France has made the equality between the two sets of workers much more ap­ parent than real. Several students have concluded that net immigration into Britain since 1945 was too small for it to have had significant effects, even in slowing the rise of general wage levels.41 Aside from the impact of immigration on general wage levels, however, it also affects relative wage levels, and particularly wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers. It does this because "the large scale entry of poorly educated men lacking industrial training and experience increases the supply of labour at a time when it would otherwise decline. The effect is that wages for unskilled work are kept down."42 Again, however, the scale of net immigration into Britain was 38

"Pour une politique de !'immigration," pp. 5-6. Ibid. 40 Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de I'Emploi, p. 55. 41 Castles and Kosack, p. 378; K. Jones and A. D. Smith, The Economic Impact of Commonwealth Immigration, pp. 152-155. 42 Castles and Kosack, p. 380. 39

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

apparently so small that it had little or no discernible effect on relative wage levels. Jones and Smith found that rather than stagnating, wages in certain sectors in which Common­ wealth immigrants tended to concentrate actually experienced above average rises during the period covered by their study (1961-1966). 43 IMMIGRATION AND INFLATION

A very attractive feature of immigrant labor from the point of view of economic managers is its effect on inflation. There is general agreement that at least initially immigration is counterinflationary. One reason has to do with the fact that immigrants tend to save more than ordinary workers, and thus contribute more to supply than demand. Since they often arrive alone and must send money back home to sup­ port their families, and because they often see their sojourn as a temporary means to accumulate the capital for some venture such as buying a house or starting a business back home, they are likely to save a good proportion of their incomes. Mishan, among others, has attempted to refute this view. He contends that the social capital which is needed in order to provide housing, schools, and hospitals for immi­ grants negates this supposed benefit. But it seems clear that no country has, at least initially, expended enough capital on foreign workers to do away with the counterinflationary bene­ fits of immigration. In addition, because immigrants often move into declining areas of the central cities and because they tend to occupy housing more densely than nationals, they actually extend the life of existing capital.44 As immigration continues on a large scale, however, it may be that it loses its ability to counteract inflation. The case of 43Jones

and Smith, pp. 152-154. Mishan, "Does Immigration Confer Economic Benefits Upon the Host Country?" A careful study of the consumption patterns of immigrants in the U.K. shows that they save about the same propor­ tion of their incomes as Britons—7 per cent. See Jones and Smith, p. 154. 44

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Switzerland appears to be relevant here, since with over 30 per cent of the work force foreign, a massive amount of social investment is necessary to keep up with the basic needs of the new population.45 Castles and Kosack have concluded that immigration in the long run had a somewhat inflationary effect in Switzerland. In Germany and France the impact has probably been rather disinflationary, while in Britain it is likely that there has not been much effect one way or the other, due to the small volume of net immigration.46 The evidence of the impact of migrant workers on labor supply, wage levels, and inflation, then, is mixed. It seems that in France migrants did perform certain of the functions which Marx thought to be characteristic of the industrial reserve army. They facilitated the avoidance of supply bottle­ necks and thus provided new outlets for expansion, relieved (at least relatively) wage pressure, and in general helped hold down inflation. The role of immigrants in Britain is less clear. It seems that net immigration was too small to have much impact on the economy as a whole. Likewise, Commonwealth immigrants do not seem, on the whole, to have been cast into the role of a reserve army. Indian migrants tended to be relatively skilled and educated. Pakistani and West Indian immigrants, on the other hand, probably exhibited more of the characteristics of a reserve army, even though their impact on the economy was probably diluted by the small size of net migration. The one group which has for a long time acted as a reserve army of the unemployed is the Irish. Emigration from Ireland was very high in the period from 1951 to 1961, reaching levels not seen since 1871-1890. There were 533,000 Irish living in Britain in 1951 and this figure had climbed to 726,000 by 1961, and 739,000 by 1966. Annual average immigration 45 H. M. Hagmann, "Capital to Men or Men to Capital?" pp. 5-11; Kindleberger, "Mass Migration—Then and Now," p. 651. 46 Castles and Kosack, p. 393. This is the judgment of Jones-and Smith as well, p. 156.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

from Ireland was much higher in the fifties (25,000) than in the sixties (8,000), suggesting that movements were affected by general economic conditions in both countries. But, as I have argued, Irish migration was never a political issue and was largely invisible.47 The discussion will turn now to a consideration of the second question which the reserve army thesis proposes: Is there evidence that the business and governmental elite in France and Britain actively sought to use migrants as a re­ serve army? Government Policy and the Reserve Army The British case may be most easily dispensed with. I have shown that there were those who wished to see quite large numbers of new immigrants as a component of a program of economic expansion. The editors of the Economist were the most outspoken proponents of this view. They often seemed to justify their position in terms reminiscent of the reserve army thesis. For example, they pointed out that migrants were comparatively cheap (the host did not have to bear the expense of rearing and educating the worker during the long, "unproductive" period before he became an adult) and that they were highly mobile. Furthermore, the Economist favored immigration even in the face of rather high domestic unemployment overall. Migrants, they contended, would take up jobs abandoned by Britons, and in this sense were not strictly competitive with them for employment. On several occasions, however, the journal explicitly denied that it was suggesting the creation of a reserve army, and indeed they argued against using immigrant labor temporarily only to send it back home when it was no longer needed.48 Whatever the desires of the Economist and the rest of the business sector, it is perfectly obvious that British policy rarely was directed toward the exploitation of immigrants for economic purposes (which is not to deny that immigrants 47 48

See Berelson, pp. 14, 613. Economist, 13 February 1965.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

were exploited, a different matter altogether). The point of the story of British immigration policy is that its progenitors were almost always blind to the potential benefits to be reaped from a healthy influx of new workers. Castles and Kosack have written that British immigration policies on the whole have not been shaped by economic considerations. . . . The restriction of entries from the Commonwealth after 1962 was dictated by political considerations and has probably been harmful economically. The new Conservative immigration policy laid down in 1970 purports to align immigration with British labour needs, but will probably remain highly restrictive due to the antipathy towards immigrants among many Conservatives. In general, British immigration policy has been the result of political factors. Its restrictiveness in recent years has not served anybody's economic inter­ ests.49 In France, the story is more complicated. The relationship between growth and immigration was much more apparent to those with the power to make decisions than it had been in Britain. Furthermore, and this may really be the key, French officials had the liberty to allow migration to continue at high rates for a number of years before massive public resentment became manifest. Even if British policy makers had been strongly committed to the need for new immigra­ tion, they would have pursued such a program at their own considerable political risk. Yet, despite the existence in France in the postwar period of a permissive public attitude toward a significant immigrant influx in order to provide the means for expansion (see chapter 8), it is not obvious that the policy actually enunciated was designed to create an in­ dustrial reserve army. Xavier Lannes has argued, for example, that the initial 49 Castles and Kosack, pp. 424-425; see also Jonathan Power, "The New Proletariat," p. 10.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

impetus to a major immigration program was short-circuited by the rather conservative views of the Commissariat General du Plan. As has been shown, the Plan insisted, in a manner compatible with the views of the Ministry of Labor and of the labor movement in general, that any immigration should be in response to either existing or clearly anticipated vacan­ cies in the labor market. In so doing, the members of the Planning Commission "refused to consider the urgency of demographic needs, and, according to all appearances, were never convinced that a properly conducted immigration could be, in itself, a factor of economic expansion."50 A strict manpower policy, of the type advocated by the Plan and by the Liberal Party in Britain, cannot be considered part of a strategy to develop an industrial reserve army. Rather than attempting to create a large pool of unemployed workers of! which capitalist expansion may feed, such an approach simply tries to meet the demands of the productive apparatus as it already exists. It is, therefore, an inherently cautious policy, as critics like Lannes point out. In opposing immigration in excess of job vacancies, the Plan was expressing its commitment to what must be con­ sidered one of the most basic goals of all Western political systems in the contemporary period—the maintenance of full employment. This norm has been so strong, as a matter of fact, that it alone would lead one to be circumspect in sug­ gesting that governments were creating an industrial army of unemployed workers. With respect to national workers this thesis is clearly untenable. Far from encouraging unemploy­ ment, governments have shown themselves to be highly sen­ sitive to the mere threat of excess labor. Resort to foreign workers is one way to manage industrial expansion without a pool of unemployed, as I have suggested, and in this sense is merely a confirmation of the decision maker's desire to maintain full employment of domestic workers. The threat of redundancy is shifted from indigenous to foreign laborers 50 Lannes,

L'immigration en France depuis 1945, p. 16.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

and, since the latter may be returned home, unemployment may be exported in a way that is impossible without immigra­ tion. The viewpoint of the Plan was not actually reflected in government policy, though. Instead, there was a long period of ineffectively regulated spontaneous immigration which saw large numbers of migrants enter the country on their own rather than through the official route of the National Immi­ gration Office. By means of the procedure of regularization, the government not only tacitly condoned this process, but actually encouraged it. While officially condemning clan­ destine entry, the modal view among policy makers was probably expressed by M. Jeanneney, then Minister of Labor, when in 1969 he announced that "even clandestine immigra­ tion is not without its uses; if we complied strictly with inter­ national regulations, we would perhaps lack the manpower we need."51 In addition, the utter indifference with which public officials often responded to the wretched living con­ ditions of migrants must be interpreted as the result either of simple callousness or a conscious effort to keep the costs of foreign labor low. All of this leads one to concur with the observation of Michel Bosquet when he characterizes the French response as the policy of the "lemon press," squeezing every ounce of advantage possible from the migrants.52 Until 1968, then, actual French policy was compatible with, even supportive of, the creation of a pool of highly mobile, exploited, insecure, and extremely useful labor. This policy was politically possible because the national work force benefited from it in the form of "promotions" to higher status occupations and increased national productivity and, consequently, the labor movement remained passive for some time. Eventually, however, an effort was begun by the trade unions and parties of the left to alter this set of circum­ stances, but a significant demand for change grew up within the government and the business community themselves. This 51 52

Cited in Minces, Les travailleurs etrangers en France, p. 136. "A quoi servent Ies immigres?" p. 79.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

emerging position owed very little to concern about the in­ human way in which migrant workers were being treated in France, nor did it signal a newly fashioned awareness of the economically dependent role current immigration arrange­ ments assigned to the labor-exporting nations. Rather, it grew out of a characteristically careful and unsentimental assessment of economic realities. THE COSTS OF IMMIGRATION— TOWARD A REAPPRAISAL OF POLICY

One of the first and most important criticisms of immigra­ tion was that it placed a great burden on the social services of the host country which were seen as severely strained already. This issue was particularly salient in Britain because, it seems, immigrants arriving there possessed citizenship rights and therefore were entitled to all the benefits of the welfare state that went to any citizen. In France, this con­ troversy was less important, one suspects, because French policy provided for the needs of immigrants (to the extent that it did so at all) through the device of separate programs and agencies, as was outlined in the previous chapter. Fur­ thermore, the curious means by which France financed the bulk of its programs for immigrants (by paying the families of immigrants who remained in their homeland smaller family allowances and contributing the difference to the Social Action Fund, and by requiring employers to pay fees for the use of the services of the National Immigration Office) meant that the likelihood that French men and women would feel that support for immigrants was coming out of their pockets was greatly reduced. The complaint that immigrants came to Britain in order to live off the welfare state, the national health service, and the dole was a common one among right-wing opponents of the open door. But the evidence is that despite their rather pre­ carious position in the labor market, immigrants in Britain used the facilities of the welfare state to a lesser extent than

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

did the average Briton. Jones and Smith, in a comprehensive study of the economic impact of Commonwealth immigrants in Britain, conclude that they make less use of the social services per head than natives. The reasons for this are that immigrants tend to be younger than the average and to be in good health. The authors point out, in addition, that the sav­ ings afforded to the state in social services more than com­ pensate for the additional expenditure for education and child-care services which immigration entails.53 Only if the host society invests large sums into new capital in order to provide schools, housing, and hospitals for immigrants would they in any way be a strain on the social services. In fact, this has not been done in either Britain or France.54 If the presumed pressure of immigrants on the social services is spurious, their contribution to other social costs in terms of domestic unrest, protest, and violence is not. This has been one of the major themes of this study and it is not necessary to repeat it here. The point is that it was in part the recognition or belief that immigration, whatever its economic benefits, would lead to racial and social turmoil that led government and business leaders to seek to bring it under control. In this, government officials were much more active than business leaders. Since the British government never pursued an economi­ cally based immigration policy, it is not necessary to trace the evolution of their thinking about the relative utility of immigration for the economy. In France, on the other hand, policy toward immigration as a means to economic growth and stability has undergone a major transformation in recent years and this has been reflected in the thinking of the patronat. French policy from shortly after 1946 until around 1968 had been to tolerate or even tacitly support the development of an uncontrolled immigration whereby the majority of migrants entered the country by their own means, lacking 5 3 Economic 54

Impact, p. 156. David Collard, "Immigration and Discrimination," p. 75.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

work permits or prearranged employment and housing. Such a policy was desirable since it kept down the cost of immi­ gration—no special provisions had to be made for spon­ taneous immigrants, and because of their insecure situation they were easily exploited and made to accept poor terms— and it was also the only practical means by which France could acquire the large numbers of workers she needed.55 In this policy the patronat was a willing partner, or more cor­ rectly, the leading hand. Traditionally, French businessmen had not hestitated to recruit workers from abroad when economic conditions seemed to require it. Before 1941, individual employers and private associations sent missions to neighboring countries to contact potential migrants. After the First World War, a number of patronal organizations combined to form the Societe Generale d'Immigration (SGI). This association possessed a monopoly over the recruitment of foreign labor, thanks to government sanction of its activities. The SGI ne­ gotiated directly with foreign governments to create private manpower accords and between 1924 and 1931 brought over 50,000 workers to France. It was not until the creation of the National Immigration Office in 1945 that the government took over this important function from the private sector.56 Throughout the postwar period French firms sent representa­ tives abroad to recruit workers, cooperated with smugglers who brougtht in illegal entrants, and circumvented the ONI to the point that its supposed monopoly over immigration was a farce. The CNPF openly and roundly criticized the ONI for its inefficiency and bureaucratic cumbersomeness.57 Within the government the major critic of this laissez-faire approach was the Commissariat General du Plan. As we have seen the Commissariat desired a coherent and organized im­ migration that was designed to meet the immediate needs of 55Le

Monde, 8 September 1973; Minces, p. 136. Prost, "L'immigration en France depuis cent ans," p.

56 Antoine

538. 57

Le Monde, 14 January 1975.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

the economy, and in so doing compensate for France's demographic handicaps. For a number of years the pleas of the Plan went unheeded, but eventually the convergence of a number of long-term trends and immediate crises created the conditions for a major transformation of the French analysis of the economic role of immigration. Among the particular events which led to the policy shift was the rise of domestic unrest between the immigrant and indigenous populations which was apparent in the late sixties. In addition, the great scare of the May Days in 1968, and the role of migrant workers as a destabilizing force, led some in the government to take a hard look at a policy which could foresee only the continued entrance of such individuals in large numbers. Furthermore, the increasing aggressiveness of the government of Algeria in demanding the protection and welfare of its citizens residing in France raised the question of how long France could continue to rely on labor provided by Third World countries. In addition, there was the fact that the sheer size of the immigrant population was by now quite large and still growing. In the context of the common acceptance of theories of a threshold of tolerance, this could only be a cause of anxiety. All of these short- and long-term factors led French de­ cision makers to reassess the ideas upon which their policies had been based. It is perhaps more correct to say that it led them to assess the need to develop a policy in the absence of one. This process involved a reconsideration of the eco­ nomic benefits of immigration (viewed now in the long term) and an awareness of certain economic realities which had gone unnoticed before. I would argue as well that the coin­ cidence of the change in policy with the advent of stagnation and unemployment was not decisive. My point is that immi­ gration would have been reconsidered on other grounds in any case. One primary stimulus toward a more controlled and or­ ganized policy was the belief that such a route was the best means to ensure that France remained competitive with her

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

European neighbors for foreign manpower. This had been one of the recurring themes of the successive Plans. For ex­ ample, the report of the Manpower Commission of the Third Plan in 1956 argued that "the principal question is whether the standard of living in France for foreign workers is still sufficient to encourage them to leave their homelands."58 The report pointed out that the major problem in this regard was housing and that in order to bring it up to par with that available in other countries it would be necessary to make some additional effort.59 Likewise, the Commission's Report which was prepared in conjunction with the Fifth Plan dwelt at length on these issues. In fact, the bulk of the chapter dealing with immigration was a series of measures designed to help France lure immigrants away from her European neighbors.60 Minces has suggested that the desire to remain competitive was the primary motivation in the reorganization of policy around 1968-1969. She concludes that the government knew that immigration had to be brought under control but that it shrank from the wholesale expulsion of foreigners such as Germany had engaged in during its recession. Instead, she points out, officials decided to rely on the means already at their disposal but being ignored—they proceeded to imple­ ment the regulations which had existed since 1945, primarily the stricture that workers could enter only through the offices of ONI. The Fontanet Circular, which strictly limited the number of persons who could henceforth benefit from the process of regularization, was the centerpiece of this new strategy. By this means the number of foreigners could be quickly (and outwardly painlessly) reduced.61 The CNPF heartily concurred with the renewed emphasis on the ma­ chinery of the ONI. This is surprising and significant since 58 Commissariat General du Plan, "L'immigration dans Ie Troisieme Plan," p. 15. 58Ibid., p. 18. 60 Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport General, ch. 5. 61 Minces, p. 138. For German policy during recession, see Gregory Schmidt, "Foreign Workers and Labor Market Flexibility."

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

the organization had opposed ONI for years. In a statement issued in 1975 the CNPF admitted that it had been an archcritic of the agency but commended it for its performance since 1972 and urged that it be given increased responsibility and resources.62 While I find Minces' analysis convincing, I believe she oversimplifies the causes of the reorientation of policy. France did not seek to master immigration to keep the way open for future recourse to foreign labor. To a signifi­ cant extent the new measures reflected a new and growing disenchantment with foreign labor per se. Among those aspects of immigration that troubled French planners and businessmen, none was more serious than the tendency of an easily accessible foreign labor supply to be a disincentive for businesses to modernize, increase produc­ tivity, and innovate technologically. This was a problem which troubled a special team of examiners who studied French manpower policy in 1973 for the OECD.63 The avail­ ability of an expanding labor pool gives the businessman the opportunity to meet his production needs by adding more low-cost labor rather than increasing his productivity by modernizing his plant or by introducing new machinery and technology. Because of this, migrant labor allows a number of marginal firms to stay in business which would otherwise go under. It serves then as a block to the normal operation of the market by which the most efficient and innovative firms prosper while the more backward and inefficient firms fail. National productivity as a whole suffers as a consequence. This was the reasoning of M. Corentin Calvez in his im­ portant report which was subsequently adopted by the Social and Economic Council. "The recourse to an abundant man­ power at depressed salaries," Calvez observes, "can be for the sectors concerned a relative restraint to the modernization of their equipment."64 62

Le Monde, 14 January 1975. Manpower Policy in France, p. 19. 64 "Le probleme des travailleurs etrangers," p. 309. See also on this point, Paulette and Pierre Calame, Les travailleurs etrangers en France, p. 53. 63

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Michel Massenet echoed these sentiments when he argued that if they are forced, businesses will rationalize production, but if cheap labor is available they will not. Consequently, Massenet concludes, it is not healthy in a period of intense international competition to provide your country's businesses with a disincentive to be as productive as possible. The open-door immigration policy, he adds, is such an incentive.65 The decision to clamp down on immigration and to make it more difficult for employers to hire foreigners was consis­ tent with the characteristic tools of French planning—provid­ ing a set of incentives for the most progressive firms to con­ form to the wishes of the government and allowing those unwilling or unable to follow suit to offer the consequences.66 The shift in policy represented a victory on the part of the Planning Commission, which had been warning of the dis­ advantages of the massive use of cheap labor for some time and whose Employment Commission for the Sixth Plan had written that "the risk is great, and we shall see that it is not imaginary, of utilizing foreign manpower as a substitute for a necessary modernization in certain sectors."67 Besides its function as a brake on rationalization and modernization, immigration was seen to be an alternative to a more determined and efficient use of existing national manpower. France is notorious for the overstafiing of certain service occupations and for the relatively low rate of activity of its population (64.4 per cent in 1968). It is still the country in industrial Europe with the highest proportion of its population engaged in agriculture and the government has been largely unsuccessful at luring peasants off the farm and into the cities. The OECD has been urging an "active" man­ power strategy upon the countries of Western Europe for a number of years.68 Such a policy involves bringing workers 65

"Pour une politique (!'immigration," n.p. Shonfield, Modern Capitalism, pp. 128-129; Stephen Co­ hen, Modern Capitalist Planning. 67 Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de I'Emploi, p. 38. 68 Besides the report on France cited in n. 63 above, the organiza66Andrew

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

to the jobs, and vice versa, and drawing housewives and non­ productive persons into the work force. It means having very active job-training programs to facilitate the transfer of workers from declining sectors to more productive and grow­ ing industries. It includes as one of its prerequisites an end to the wholesale and often unnecessary introduction of for­ eign workers. The French have begun to institute such a policy. They issued a circular in July 1972 which created the Agence Nationale Pour l'Emploi (ANPE) and which stipu­ lated that no foreigner could be hired for a job until it had been listed with ANPE for at least three weeks during which no domestic worker could be found. The institution of extra charges for any employer who wished to hire foreign workers, which was discussed in chapter 3, was also part of the general effort to discourage their use and followed the recommenda­ tions of the OECD. One reason that the government was concerned over the failure to utilize fully the potential French labor force was a perception that labor shortages were becoming structural rather than simply temporary, and another had to do with their appraisal of future sources of immigrant workers. In the period immediately after World War II, French officials knew that they faced acute shortages of workers, but could place responsibility for the situation on the immense losses the country had suffered in both wars and on the low birth rate the country had been experiencing for many years. By the 1960s, however, they began to sense that the deficit was not simply the result of a temporary absence of sufficient workers in France, but rather was a structural characteristic of the French economy, indeed of Western industrial econo­ mies in general. One simple and popular explanation for the chronic nature of labor shortfalls was that as a result of rising affluence and expectations, French workers were simtion has issued studies of manpower policy in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Denmark, among others.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

ply no longer willing to perform mean, unpleasant, and poorly compensated tasks.0" According to this view there was little or nothing that could be done to attract Europeans back into these occupations and therefore, since they re­ mained essential to the economy, migration was inevitable. Furthermore, there might be a need for immigration even when there was a high level of unemployment in the econ­ omy as a whole, since the unemployment would be sectorspecific.70 The CNPF also believed that labor shortages in France were semipermanent. M. J.-P. Dumont, a patronat spokesman, observed that "immigration is a structural prob­ lem which concerns all the developed countries. The re­ course to immigrant manpower is a precondition to the maintenance of industrial activity in the present circum­ stances."71 Precisely why the industrial economies of Western Europe should be in the predicament of suffering structural and persistent shortages of adequate manpower is not completely clear. Marios Nikolinakos argues that the rapid growth in the postwar period had two effects on the labor force. The rise in income created a shift of demand toward services and an expansion of the service sector. This led to a horizontal movement of workers into that sector and then a vertical shift of the same workers into higher paying and more highly qualified positions. Foreign workers were necessary to fill the resulting vacancies.72 Another cause of the shortages appears to be immigration 69

See, for example, "L'immigration dans Ie Troisieme Plan," p. 14. ™ Ibid. 71 J. Bunel and J. Saglio, "Le CNPF et la politique d'immigration," p. 42. My account of CNPF's policy draws heavily on this excellent study. 72 Marios Nikolinakos, "Notes Towards a General Theory of Migration in Late Capitalism," p. 7. Of course workers would per­ form the less desirable tasks if they were paid their "historic price." See n. 8, ch. 3, above, and the comments by Andre Gorz, ch. 7, be­ low. However, Nikolinakos's point is that national workers are not available at any price.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

itself. Charles Kindleberger has described the process in the following manner: In the short run, with excess capacity of plant but full employment of labour, immigration pays off. Wages are held down, profits are maintained; it is the best of all possible economic worlds. In time, however, high profits stimulate plant expansion, which makes it not only de­ sirable, but now imperative to have foreign workers.73 Kindleberger was speaking specifically of the Swiss case and it is from the experience of that country that Herman Hagmann draws his observations of the manner in which immigration may stimulate a need for new labor. Migration, according to Hagmann, works as a multiplier of jobs much like a snowball that grows larger and larger. When this process is at work, "the total number of immigrants no longer reflects the minimum labour force needed to meet shortages in the economy but rather a state of over-manning in excess of . . . natural economic factors."74 Having accepted the thesis of the structural nature of labor deficiencies, many French officials concluded that the country had been living beyond its means, had achieved economic expansion on the cheap, and had built it on a shaky foundation. Their anxiety over this discovery must surely have been heightened by the fear that it was impos­ sible to continue large-scale immigration indefinitely. There were at least three reasons why this was so. The first grew out of a conclusion that it was highly un­ desirable to practice relatively free immigration between two countries which were at different levels of development. This was because the normal market regulation of immigration does not operate in such cases. Maurice Schumann presented 73 "Mass

Migration—Then and Now," p. 651. M. Hagmann, p. 6. See the similar theory of the self-feeding process of labor migration in liberal-capitalist societies developed by W. R. Bohning, Migration of Workers in the United Kingdom and the European Community, ch. 4. 74 H.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

this view in his major policy address in 1969. He noted that there is no danger that any excessive immigration can occur between the countries of the Common Market because they are all relatively developed systems. But between France and the underdeveloped world the natural mechanisms of regulation break down. Since the countries possess different demographic rhythms and different levels of economic de­ velopment, the passage of manpower between them cannot be responsive to any coherent economic imperative. Having excess population, the underdeveloped countries try to solve their problems in part through emigration.75 Under normal circumstances, the influx into a country will closely mirror the number of available jobs. But in the case of migration from an overpopulated, underdeveloped country to an ad­ vanced economy, the migrant is faced with the choice be­ tween certain unemployment and hunger at home and the possibility of employment or at least underemployment in the host country. The consequence is the development of a migratory flow which is relatively autonomous of the num­ ber of available jobs and one sees an immigration of pres­ sure slowly replacing an immigration of control.76 The disequilibrium caused by this process was especially distressing to French decision makers since, as we have seen, with the passing years the sources of manpower which were available to France were less and less often in the de­ veloped countries and more and more in the underdeveloped world. Therefore, if France wished to continue to bring in workers it would be increasingly difficult to control the flux and more and more conscious efforts at direction would be necessary. Free immigration, or liberal immigration, under such conditions was simply a farce, according to Massenet, and the only truly liberal policy was one of control.77 The second reason that immigration could not go on at 75 Schumann,

"La politique fran?aise (!'immigration," pp. 937-938. General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de

76 Commissariat

I'Emptoi, p. 42. 77 "Pour une politique (!'immigration," n.p.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

its present rate was that the workers who came from the underdeveloped countries, and especially those from North Africa, tended to be very slow to assimilate to French life and, as a result, tended to breed social tensions. This served to raise both the social and material cost of immigration to the point that it was no longer profitable. The third factor was the possibility, even inevitability, that all potential sources of immigration might dry up in the near future. This was the fear of the CNPF. Its leaders recognized that the reason manpower was no longer acces­ sible from France's European neighbors, and especially Spain, Portugal, and Italy, was that these countries were on the road to economic development themselves and were attempting to preserve their manpower for their own pur­ poses. The patronat estimated that by 1985 all major sources of immigration could have disappeared and this could serve to "stall the productive apparatus of France."78 It was even possible, they observed, that the labor-exporting countries might form a cartel similar to that of the oil-pro­ ducing countries and set up conditions for migration that would wreck the economic plans of the West.79 The government's response to this dilemma was multipronged. On the one hand, it belatedly began to upgrade the living conditions of migrants in France as one way of reas­ suring the governments of the sending countries, especially Algeria, that their nationals would be treated fairly and with respect.80 Secondly, it began to take steps to slow and stabilize immigration, as we have seen. The final response, though, was to try to make the immigration agreements with labor-exporting countries (the bilateral accords which have characterized French policy) a part of a coordinated plan by which the economic interests of both countries would be 78 Bunel

and Saglio, p. 13. L'Express, 21-27 October 1974. 80 See the comments by M. Gorse, Minister of Labor, in Le Monde, 21 September 1973; and those of President Giscard d'Estaing, Le Monde, 1 March 1975. 79

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

served.81 The Employment Commission of the Sixth Plan ob­ served that in practice there may be a conflict between France's desire to use immigration as a means to regulate the labor market and the sending country's wish to relieve an excessive unemployment problem, but within limits co­ operation could proceed.82 The sending country would ac­ cede to certain strict bounds being placed on the number of workers who could be introduced into France each year and to certain controls for health and related reasons. France would agree to guarantee decent accommodations, equitable treatment, and perhaps most importantly, indus­ trial job-training. There is cause to doubt whether the commitment of French officials to use immigration as a form of development cooperation and aid is very strong. Michel Massenet has put the case frankly that immigration is not a means of help­ ing the underdeveloped countries industrialize. In fact, he takes a rather nationalistic, domestic-centered approach: "A state ceases to be a state if it does not control the implanta­ tion of foreigners on its soil."83 A number of observers have argued that France, whether she ignored, exploited, or con­ trolled immigration, has always looked on foreign labor as a commodity of exchange to be manipulated solely for her own economic profit.84 P. Lanier, writing of the Calvez re­ port to the Social and Economic Council, notes that "it is pitched above all at an utilitarian and economic level, and solely from the point of view of France."85 Part of the confusion apparent here has to do with whether immigration should be permanent or temporary. France had always preferred permanent immigrants, but it 81M. Joseph Fontanet, Minister of Labor, in Le Monde, U Sep­ tember 1969. 82 Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport de la Commission de VEmploi, pp. 83-84. 83 "Pour une politique de !'immigration," n.p. 84 Le Monde, 5 July 1974. 85 "Au confluent des relations internationales."

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

can be argued that such a policy takes the best young man­ power away from the sending country and gives nothing in return. As long as France engaged in a program of "repopulation," there could be no mutual development ar­ rangements.86 But, on the other hand, many critics believe that temporary manpower schemes are inherently exploita­ tive and of dubious value to the sending country. Further­ more, the utility of such arrangements for France—the flexibility which allows rises in unemployment at home to be met by exporting surplus foreigners—would be lost through the negotiation of strict time limits for the visitor and guar­ antees against arbitrary repatriation. It was to resolve these contradictions in government policy that the CNPF, meeting in Lille in 1974, developed the first serious program on immigration ever offered by French businessmen.87 Elements of the patronafs analysis have already been discussed—the detrimental effects immi­ gration could have on modernization and productivity, its sometimes disastrous social consequences, and its tendency to be less and less available and more and more expensive. In addition, we have seen that the CNPF favored the reinvigoration of its archnemesis the ONI and, moreover, volun­ teered (in 1974) to make additional contributions for mi­ grant worker housing. In doing so, the _ organization was surely acknowledging the handwriting on the wall, since the government subsequently demanded even more material sup­ port for foreign labor from employers, as we have seen. It is the CNPF's proposals on the international regula­ tion of immigration that are most innovative and interesting. 86

Calame and Calame, p. 23. CNPF has only occasionally had anything to say about im­ migration policy in the past. The report read at Lille represents the culmination of several years of research, discussion, and planning. Its contents have been foreshadowed in three earlier CNPF publications: "Les travailleurs etrangers en France," Notes et Arguments 26 (March 1972); "Les travailleurs etrangers en France," Economie Geographie 95 (May 1972); "Les travailleurs etrangers en France," Notes et Arguments 40 (December 1973). 87 The

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

First of all, the organization observes that the immigration difficulties of France are merely part of a larger European phenomenon and that in seeking to resolve them, France should consult with her neighbors. In fact, the CNPF pro­ poses a European-wide solution.88 The real question is the relationship between the industrial, labor-importing coun­ tries, and the underdeveloped, labor-exporting countries. The CNPF knows that as the latter proceed along the road to industrialization they will seek to halt emigration and use their manpower at home. This, of course, would be calami­ tous for the Western countries which have built a huge in­ dustrial apparatus far exceeding the capacities of their own work forces. To avoid this unpleasant prospect, the CNPF proposes a form of cooperation that would amount to a new international division of labor. This involves several aspects both short and long term. In the short term, the patronat proposes an end to per­ manent immigration. Such a policy can only lead to social disruption and conflict and it is an unfair drain on the re­ sources of sending countries. In its place, France should set up a temporary manpower plan whereby single workers would be allowed to come to France to work for a stated duration and return home. There would be no attempt to integrate these workers into the life of France, a goal which is unattainable at any rate. For their part, the workers would receive valuable on-the-job training in industrial tasks which they would take back to their country of origin and put to good use. Temporary immigration, then, could be seen as a form of aid to the developing countries. In the long term, however, France should work toward the day when immigration could come to a halt. Since it is impossible for the industrial machine to be supported by the native population, and since to cut back on the scale of in­ dustrial production would mean a drastic reduction in the standard of living of Frenchmen and is clearly unthinkable, 88 CNPF, "Les travailleurs etrangers en France," Economie Geo­ graphic, p. 9.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

the only solution is to export capital to the Third World. Since bringing labor to capital has been unsuccessful, the reverse should be tried. This idea has been popular among certain left-wing critics of immigration and will be dis­ cussed, in that context, in the next chapter. Left-wing plans have little in common with the patronaf s vision, it should be plain. The means by which capital should be exported, the CNPF believes, is through the multinationalization of French, and European, firms. In other words, the world economy would be divided into three parts. Those countries rich in natural resources would provide the capital for the system. Those underdeveloped countries lacking primary materials would provide the only factor of production they have in abundance—manpower. The units of production would be transplanted from the industrial West to those countries with adequate men to run them. The wealthy countries would provide the know-how and technology over which they currently hold a monopoly.89 The CNPF's plan entails little real change from the in­ ternational economy as it exists today. While it envisions the exportation of French industry to the Third World, it does not suggest that the ownership of those firms should in any way be altered. But wha'tever its weaknesses, in theory or practice, it does make it clear that business interests in France have become disenchanted with the foreign work force that is to a significant degree their own creation. CONCLUSION

This chapter has tried to demonstrate how the economic implications of immigration have been perceived by policy makers and how official decisions have been affected by economic considerations. In addition, evidence on the ac­ tual impact of migration on the labor supply, wage levels, inflation, and growth in general has been offered. On balance 89

Bunel and Saglio, p. 47.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

it appears that immigration has been most profitable for the French, while its effects on British economic fortunes is ambiguous partly as a result of the fact that net migration has been rather minor. The French have been intensely aware of the possible economic uses to which immigration might be put and their policies have almost exclusively focused on these aspects. Nevertheless, since about 1968 the social and political ramifi­ cations of continued immigration have become much more salient to both policy makers and employers. Assessed strict­ ly from the point of view of the French economy, and the goals which French decision makers had set, one must give French immigration policy high marks. It is perhaps unfair to charge the British for failing to derive economic benefits from immigration since their policy was never geared toward those goals. Given, however, the broader economic objec­ tives of British economic policy—and the disappointing failure to achieve all but that of full employment—one may ask why the seemingly obvious potential rewards of immi­ grant labor were not fairly seized upon by government of­ ficials. Surely the most important factor is that in Britain immi­ gration became a highly emotive social and political issue that attracted the attention of the mass public. Immigration, and especially nonwhite immigration, became the focus for the fears and aspirations of groups with divergent interests and motives. There were consequently a number of political roadblocks in the way of an immigration policy attuned to economic requirements. This situation is not especially sur­ prising when one examines the historical record. Britain has always demonstrated a limited tolerance for foreigners and has been quick to shut the doors.90 Still, it is not sufficient merely to acknowledge the exist­ ence of mass opposition to immigration as an important cause of the disjuncture between British policy and eco­ nomic realities. In interpreting immigration in racial, moral, 90 See

John Garrard, The English and Immigration, 1880-1910.

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

social, and political terms, that is in almost any terms con­ ceivable except economic, the public was no different from its leaders. British officials used such noneconomic concepts in their own discussions and there is little reason to suppose that they did so only because of the pressure of public opinion or that in the absence of that opinion they would have done otherwise. A primary cause of the failure of the government to grasp the economic possibilities of immigration appears to be the weakness or even absence of a planning tradition. This has had two effects. The first is the general disinclination to see the basic function of the policy maker as the careful manipu­ lation of people, events, and resources toward the goals of the state. The more normal British view seems to be that the public official's duty is foremost to manage conflict and to seek a middle ground between conflicting interests. British immigration policy has been oriented toward the mollifica­ tion of political anxieties and the resolution of social strife. The second consequence is that there was no strong ad­ ministrative agency which saw it as its special task to inquire into the economic implications of one immigration policy or another. Had there been a government department or agency willing and able to lobby for an economic approach, there would have been at least the possibility that the potential benefits of immigration would have received a partial hear­ ing in public. But British immigration was the responsi­ bility of the Home Office, not the Department of Employ­ ment and Productivity (there was no real counterpart to the French Planning Commission), and the Home Office was concerned primarily with police functions. As it was, the government failed to provide evidence of the impact of im­ migration on the economy one way or the other, instead concentrating on an ill-fated attempt to determine exactly how many immigrants were evading their controls. In many ways the British experience with immigration is simply one more chapter in the continuing saga of their inability to

ECONOMIC CONTEXT

manage successfully their economic affairs in the last thirty years. The alacrity with which Britain passed from the decision to regulate Commonwealth immigration to the policy of halting almost all new entries from the Commonwealth re­ flects the emergence of a belief that the days when Britain can afford to take decisions on the basis of considerations beyond its national boundaries are gone forever. The authors of Colour and Citizenship refer to this as a "Little England" ideology, an insular, cautious approach to the world. They criticize this perspective as selfish and short-sighted.91 Yet it is also the outgrowth of a deep-seated pessimism about the possibilities for economic growth and expansion. The widespread assumption that the wealth and resources of the United Kingdom are strictly limited, even contracting, means that any program that anticipates the addition of new mouths to feed can only diminish the opportunities available to those already aboard "these crowded islands." 91 Rose,

p. 224.

CHAPTER 7

The Dilemma of Organized Labor and the Left

THE immigration issue has proved to be problematic for trade unions and parties with essentially working-class con­ stituencies. In their reaction to the influx of foreign workers, these organizations have exhibited an ambivalence and con­ fusion that reflects first an insufficient analysis of the class and political implications of the phenomenon and secondly a deeper failure of traditional socialist theory to deal ade­ quately with labor migration. These twin shortcomings have gravely eroded the ability of socialists to respond confidently to the situation at hand. They have been caught between opposing forces, first pushed to this position, then pulled to that. They have failed to counter effectively the policies of governments and industrialists, they have not succeeded in building a community of interests between the immigrants and the native workers, and they have lacked any systematic analysis which is capable of either elucidating their mistakes or providing a clear and hopeful guide for the future. This chapter opens with a discussion of the peculiar dif­ ficulties inherent in immigration that confront trade unions and parties of the left. An attempt is made to establish criteria for evaluating the performance of socialist move­ ments with respect to the issue. The chapter then moves to an examination of the attitudes and policies of French and British trade unions and working-class parties with regard to immigration and race relations. Special attention is given to the theoretical contributions of the revolutionary left, especially in France. The chapter will show that although no organized section of the left has successfully avoided the snares of the immigration-race question, some at least have

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT managed to prevent the issue from seriously weakening their position and have produced the rudiments of a socialist ap­ proach to the problem. Before beginning an examination of the policies and prac­ tices of the labor movements and left-wing parties in Britain and France, it may be useful to set down more precisely those issues with which any working-class organization must deal if it is to respond adequately to the challenge of immi­ gration. To accomplish that it will be necessary to provide some principles with which to evaluate a socialist policy. That is, in order to discuss intelligently the approaches to immigration of the various unions and parties which form the subject of this chapter, one must have some idea of what the requirements of any socialist policy are, and then what a socialist immigration policy, in particular, might look like. Obviously, the working-class institutions of France and Britain mean very different things when they speak of "socialism" and not all claim to be socialist. Moreover, any list of socialist principles will be arbitrary and selective. Nevertheless, such a scheme will facilitate the analysis of the left's response, and it is essentially derived from a read­ ing of that experience. There seem to be three basic require­ ments of a socialist policy. First, it must be grounded on the fundamental needs and aspirations of the workers. Secondly, it must be designed to bring about conditions favorable to the realization of a more equitable distribution of the valued goods of a society. Finally, it must be part of a program to transform fundamentally the capitalist system of production. Within these terms, for example, a policy which seeks to use immigration purely as a means of meeting the temporary or permanent manpower needs of the domestic economy cannot be a socialist policy since its primary outcome would be the perpetuation of the current economic structure in its essen­ tial form. Given these minimum principles of a socialist policy, what are the specific questions which socialists must answer in their examination of immigration?

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

1. They must tackle the question of a conflict of interests between foreign and indigenous workers. Because foreign workers have often been perceived as a threat to the eco­ nomic security of the national work force, the primordial response of trade unions has been to oppose immigration. This restrictiveness can be made to seem petty and smallminded when contrasted with socialist ideology but it is a symptom of a genuine difficulty. Immigrants do compete with indigenous workers for scarce housing and other valued goods and services. They apparently have kept wages from rising as fast as they would have had no new workers been introduced, and they have diluted the strength both of the union movement and left-wing parties. This is because mi­ grants tend to be less active in union and political affairs and because by their availability they "promote" a proportion of the national work force into nonmanual and supervisory po­ sitions. That is, they are the vehicle for the embourgeoisement of European workers. By their very presence, further­ more, immigrants reduce the voting power of the working class in France. With a large proportion of workers unable to cast their ballots, the electoral strength of the left-wing parties is seriously reduced. In order to develop a policy which satisfactorily faces these problems, socialists must 'settle the debate over the role immigrants play in the capitalist system· of production. This task has two parts: the explication of the relationship between class oppression and racial oppression (because most migrants are non-European and nonwhite) and the analysis of the ambiguous position of the migrant in the class structure. For those who believe that racial discrimination is a more serious problem for nonwhite migrants than the fact that they are workers, the interests of the latter and white work­ ers are not only not the same but they are significantly at odds. Black militants have argued for the predominance of race over class, for a privileged position for racial minori­ ties in the hierarchy of the oppressed. Proponents of this

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

view look favorably upon the organization of blacks into their own unions and the creation of black liberation move­ ments outside the existing socialist institutions. The effort to locate migrants in the class structure has led to the development of two primary concepts: the subproletariat and neocolonialism. The idea that foreign workers constitute a subproletariat can be a logical companion to the "race" perspective, although color is not a necessary com­ ponent. According to this interpretation, migrants are not only at the bottom of the European working class, they are outside it. They are an imported, semislave class who do the filthy, demeaning labor unsuitable for Europeans. The basic interests of the subproletariat are diametrically opposed to indigenous workers who profit enormously by their ex­ ploitation. Very often the theory of the subproletariat is linked to no­ tions of neo-colonialism. According to this outlook, the creation of the new proletariat can only be comprehended as a logical outgrowth of Western colonialism. In this new phase, however, rather than sending Europeans to the Third World to exploit the material and human goods in the col­ ony, the colonial powers import workers into the metro­ politan centers. The basic economic and political patterns of domination and dependence remain the same. The essen­ tial cleavages of interest in this system are between the ex­ ploited colonial labor and the European population. Far from being a potential ally of the migrant, the European worker is seen as having sold out to bourgeois interests for his own advancement. The implications of the concepts of the subproletariat and the neocolonial working class for revolutionary strategy are profound. Steering a middle ground between the traditional Marxist emphasis on the urban proletariat as the revolu­ tionary agent and recent revisionist theses which locate the sources of change in such groups as students and intellec­ tuals, and Third World liberation movements, the theory of the neocolonial subproletariat sees the possibility for radical

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

change within the industrial nations but by means of op­ pressed minorities and foreigners, not through the national working class. Revolutionaries, then, should oppose all ef­ forts to integrate these new workers into the institutional and ideological framework of the indigenous working class. Instead, they should be organized into separate parties and organizations where they may be able to consolidate their forces. The alternatives for socialist groups therefore range from the denial that any contradiction exists between immigrants and indigenous workers, to the definition of the latter as the enemy. Given the assumption that a socialist policy must incorporate the needs of the national working class, the only realistic strategy for socialists is to insist on the com­ monalities in the status of the two groups and to work for their political unification, or to concede the incompatibility of interests and halt all immigration. This last approach, al­ though seductive in theory, faces many difficulties in prac­ tice. 2. Any program must decide what emphasis will be placed on the particularities of the immigrant situation and if, and how, these will be integrated into a more general plan to satisfy the needs of all workers. As I will show, most working-class organizations have been reluctant to mount programs which were designed for immigrants only. 3. A socialist policy on immigration must meet head-on the racism that is present in the working class and avoid let­ ting it divide and fragment the movement. Although the effects of race on the status of nonwhite workers must be taken into account, a socialist approach must ultimately stress the economic roots of racism and avoid racially separatist movements. To do this, of course, a frontal assault on work­ ing-class prejudice and discrimination is a prerequisite. In many ways this is the acid test of a socialist strategy and if this condition cannot be achieved, no working-class-based policy is possible.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT 4. A socialist policy must settle the issue of controls— whether there shall be any, whether all immigration shall be halted, whether there is some criterion which may serve as the basis of a regulated immigration which does not of­ fend socialist principles. Socialists, if they choose to endorse controls, must resolve the inconsistency that will seem to exist between that position and their stance as defender of those immigrants already present. An oppositionist policy often spills over and weakens efforts to organize and assist foreign workers. 5. Finally, a socialist immigration policy must be part of a political strategy which attempts not only to take ad­ vantage of the contribution immigrants can make toward transforming the system but also to obviate the negative consequences for the workers' movement which immigration often entails. The schematic character of this discussion should not imply that only these issues stand between those who wish to construct a socialist program on immigration and its realization; many others could be raised and still more will emerge as the process of policy development proceeds. Nor should it imply that there is only one right answer to these questions. No doubt it will be necessary to adapt strategy to particular circumstances. These observations do provide some crude yardsticks with which to assess the response of the unions and parties of the left which is the task of the rest of this chapter. THE TRADE UNIONS AND THE IMMIGRANT Great Britain

The major trade union organization in Britain is the Trades Union Congress (TUC), a large and powerful feder­ ation of the major unions in the country. The TUC is struc­ turally linked to the Labour Party and partly as a result the

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

policies of the two institutions have often converged. Al­ though occasionally one of the member unions takes a po­ sition on immigration at variance with Congress policy, and though the activities of member unions vary widely, this study will examine the policy of the TUC itself. British unions have traditionally maintained restrictive views toward foreign labor.1 The attitudes of the TUC to­ ward Commonwealth immigration have been surprisingly liberal, however, and they have repeatedly criticized the La­ bour Party's control policies. The TUC first discussed Com­ monwealth immigration at the 1955 Congress where a reso­ lution was carried which welcomed the new migrants to Britain and deplored attempts to erect a color bar against Commonwealth citizens. Most interesting, however, was the explanation which the TUC offered for this migration: Congress . . . is of the opinion that these coloured workers are driven from their homeland by poverty and social insecurity which are due mainly to unbalanced economies created by long years of colonial exploitation.2 This theme has not been elaborated subsequently although the sense of obligation to the Commonwealth countries for the past colonial sins of British governments is one of the more powerful motives for TUC policy. In 1961 the TUC opposed the Commonwealth Immi­ grants Bill because it was likely to be interpreted as a racial measure by Commonwealth countries.3 The opposition to racially discriminatory immigration controls was also the basis of the TUC's bitter denunciation of the 1971 Immi­ gration Act.4 Nevertheless, there has been some modifica­ tion in the organization's feelings about controls, apparently 1 John A. Garrard, The English and Immigration, 1880-1910; Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe, pp. 138-139. 2 TUC, Congress Report, 1955. 3 TUC, General Council Report, 1962. 4 TUC, Congress Report, 1973.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

the result of the Labour Party's increasingly hardening stance against further colored immigration.5 The primary criterion which the TUC advances as the guide for immi­ gration policy is the employment needs of the domestic economy. In evidence given to the Select Committee on Im­ migration and Race Relations in 1970 the General Council argued that its view of controls on the entry of Common­ wealth citizens was that they should "be properly related to employment opportunities here."6 The council took the gov­ ernment to task for operating controls in a very crude and economically irrational manner and for being primarily con­ cerned with keeping the blacks out. But the ideal of the Commonwealth was still very much alive. Asked by a Select Committee member on what grounds the TUC would op­ pose halting all Commonwealth immigration, the organiza­ tion's representative replied: "At the risk of being senti­ mental about it, on the ground that we are still members of the Commonwealth."7 Apparently the TUC, having dismissed racial criteria on principle, and faced with the inevitability of controls, decid­ ed that an employment-oriented strategy would do the least violence to Commonwealth relations and avoid the irra­ tionality of the government's post-1962 policy. Even though the Labour Party was in power from 1964 until 1970, how­ ever, the TUC exerted almost no influence over immigration decisions. Representatives of the General Council com­ plained to the Select Committee in 1969 that though they had consistently pressed the government from 1963 to 1965 in the hope that consultations would be instituted nothing had happened, then or since. The TUC lacked the basic data on which intelligent proposals could be made, accord­ ing to the witness.8 5

Castles and Kosack, p. 140. House of Commons, Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, Control of Commonwealth Immigration, Evidence, p. 515. ι Ibid., p. 573. » Ibid., pp. 576-578. 6

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

The TUC's statements on immigration exhibit a general lack of sophisticated political and economic analysis. Apart from the 1955 Congress Resolution quoted earlier, the co­ lonial roots of immigration have not been explored. There has been no attempt to judge the impact of immigration on the political strength of the labor movement nor any serious attempt to analyze the class position of immigrants. As one commentator has put it, the TUC has tended to assume that a "worker is a worker is a worker."9 There has been, there­ fore, no need for any special approach to the black trade unionist. Indeed, the TUC has exhibited the common British abhorrence of reverse discrimination. As one delegate to the 1966 Congress charmingly put it, nondiscrimination means that "they should not be treated any worse than our own people."10 There has been a latent awareness that immigration might result in the division of the working class and the labor movement unless efforts were made to prevent it.11 In recent years individual unions have begun to put this fear into in­ creasingly radical terms. The Transport and General Work­ ers Union (TGWU) adopted a resolution in 1973 which deplored "the efforts of those who seek to destroy workingclass unity by driving a wedge between sections of workers whether within or outside the movement. . . ."12 The Amal­ gamated Union of Electrical Workers (AUEW) adopted the following statement the same year: "We recognize that it is the intention of the British ruling class to divide the working class along ethnic lines and in so doing prolong the 9

H . D. Hughes, "Introduction," p. 1. Congress Report, 1966. 11 Vic Feather (now Lord Feather) was Assistant General Secre­ tary of the TUC when he remarked in 1968 that "if coloured immi­ grants are unwilling to integrate or are unable to secure acceptance as they are, we shall have, instead of integration, permanent and weakening division among workpeople. And such a division will be completely against the essential nature of trade unionism. . . ." Quot­ ed in Monty Meth, Brothers to All Men? p. 23. 12Runnymede Trust, Industrial Supplement 36 (pamphlet). 10TUC,

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

capitalist system which itself causes these problems."13 These comments probably reflect a general increase in the rhetoric of class conflict in Britain in the seventies but they may also represent a developing if still primarily sloganistic analysis of the class interests at stake in immigration. The TUC has taken a consistent and strong stand against all forms of racial discrimination, first passing a resolution to that effect in 1955.14 Similar resolutions were adopted in 1959, 1966, and 1968. The feeling of the TUC has been that race relations are best approached as an individual matter susceptible to voluntary effort—the epitome of the British approach to race relations in general. Partly as a re­ sult of this belief, and partly out of fear of government ef­ forts to intervene in the field of collective bargaining, the TUC opposed the 1968 Race Relations Act which prohibits discriminatory practices in employment. The organization engaged in a series of negotiations with the CBI to create a voluntary scheme for the elimination of discrimination, but when the bill became law, reluctantly bowed to its require­ ments. In its day-to-day activities in the field of race relations, the TUC has been less than impressive. The general attitude has been that if "problems were left they would solve them­ selves in time. . . ."15 Normally, responsibility for the exe­ cution of Congress policy on race has been delegated to the local unions with little or no attempt at supervision.16 The limited extent of the General Council's activities was out13

Ibid.

14The

resolution read: "This Congress condemns all manifesta­ tions of racial discrimination or colour prejudice whether by govern­ ments, employers, or workers. It urges the General Council to lose no opportunity to make the trade union attitude on this issue perfect­ ly clear and to give special attention to the problems emerging in this country from the influx of fellow workers of other races with a view to removing causes of friction and preventing exploitation." Congress Report, 1955. 15 Hughes, "Introduction." 10 Meth, p. 55.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

lined by Vic Feather, then General Secretary, in 1970: "We include information about the Race Relations Acts and other legislation, in our training courses. We also call on all union members individually and through their associations, to play their part in helping immigrant workers to be integrat­ ed. . . ."17 The complacency which characterizes the TUC's behavior in this matter is reflected in the fact that domestic race relations is still the responsibility of the International Department of Congress House, a vestige of the days when racially different peoples were confined to the colonies over­ seas. Between the ideals of Congress resolutions and the reali­ ties of the shop floor there is a breathtaking gap. There is substantial evidence that discrimination against immigrants by local unions is widespread. Craft unions have been par­ ticularly restrictive in their attitudes toward blacks, as they have in the United States.18 Nonwhite workers have found it very difficult to rise into the ranks of the leadership of unions. Just how difficult is impossible to say—as a matter of principle the TUC refuses to keep any statistics by race.19 One indication, however, of the failure of the TUC to inte­ grate nonwhite workers into its own structures is given by the debate which took place at the 1965 Congress. A mem­ ber of the National Union of Journalists accused the TUC of adopting apartheid in relation to immigrants: To prove discrimination one has to prove also that some­ one has been deliberately excluded, but, nevertheless, I ask you this—is there a coloured delegate in this hall? I suggest to you that it would be as difficult for a coloured man to become a delegate to this TUC as it would be for 17

Quoted in Runnymede Trust, Industrial Supplement 37. For union discrimination in Britain, see W. W. Daniel, Racial Discrimination in Britain, pp. 132-140; E.J.B. Rose et al., Colour and Citizenship; and Beryl Radin, "Coloured Workers and British Trade Unions"; on America, see the discussion in Hubert M. Blalock, To­ ward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations, pp. 84-89. 19 Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, p. 571. 18

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

one of Ted Hill's boilermakers (cries of "Rubbish") to be a Provincial Grand Master. They are shouting "Rubbish." Have they got a coloured delegate?20 In fact, it was not until 1973, amid a certain amount of hoopla, that a black man became a full-time trade-union official in Britain.21 In summary, the TUC response to immigration has been very much within the mainstream of British political life. At the leadership level at least the organization has avoided the worst excesses of Conservative reaction, but on the shop floor the exhortations to socialist solidarity have been made to seem hollow. The TUC position has been pragmatic and improvisational, what one would expect from an organiza­ tion described by one of its recent leaders as "realistic, mod­ erate, sensible, and tolerant."22 France

The labor movement in France has played a more active role in the conflict over immigration than has its British counterpart. The trade-union confederations have been in the forefront of the fight for better treatment of foreigners and they have been in the position of pressuring the govern­ ment to improve the conditions of migrants. The story of the union role is not wholly positive, of course, and the move­ ment has abundant critics on the left, but there has never been any opportunity for the government in France to lecture the unions on their responsibilities toward immigrants as has happened in Britain. There are three major trade-union confederations in France, each with its own political complexion. The largest and most important is the Confederation Generale du Tra­ vail (CGT) which is closely allied with the Communist Part)'. The Confederation Frangaise Democratique du Tra2° TUC, Congress Report, 1965. 21 Runnymede Trust, Industrial Supplement 37. 22 Vic Feather, quoted in Meth, p. 23.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

vail (CFDT) is an outgrowth of the old Christian Demo­ cratic Confederation Franqaise des Travailleurs Cretiens (CFTC) which is now small and powerless. The CFDT has become increasingly militant in recent years, putting special emphasis on the demand for workers' self-management (I'autogestion). Finally, there is the CGT-FO (Confedera­ tion General du Travail-Force Ouvrier) which split off from the CGT in 1947. It is the most moderate of the three major federations and also the smallest. More and more the policies of the CGT and the CFDT have converged so that unless there are significant differences I shall focus primarily on the CGT position. It is imperative to distinguish the move­ ment's positions with respect to immigration control, the particular immigration policy being pursued by the govern­ ment and business, and the best means of dealing with im­ migrants once they are in France. Before World War I, the CGT accepted immigration which was designed to keep down domestic unemployment. In 1922, at its insistence, a National Council on Manpower was established with CGT-patronat representatives to over­ see immigration. During the economic crisis of the thirties, thousands of workers were sent home by the council, and the CGT cooperated in this effort. After the war, however, a number of events converged to lead the CGT to look upon immigration with rather more favor, though it consistently opposed the settlement of refugees from the new communist regimes. The most significant factor was the participation of the PCF in the government and, particularly, the position of Ambroise Croizat, a PCF member, as Minister of Labor. Croizat attempted to sell the CGT a program of planned im­ migration as a means toward economic recovery. His task was facilitated by the fact that the 1945 ordonnance which created the National Immigration Office, provided for a Conseil d'administration with labor representation. But as was related in chapter 3, the ONI quickly became a fraud and after 1948 the Conseil never met again, its functions being taken over by the Minister of Labor. These changes

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

resulted in a shift in CGT policy. From October 1948 until June 1961 all statements by the organization were opposed to immigration.23 Both the CGT-FO and the CFDT held restrictive atti­ tudes toward immigration during the same period. The CFDT feared that large-scale immigration would create un­ employment while the CGT-FO, moderately more favor­ able, hoped it would be used only when necessary.24 After 1961 the unions, especially the CGT, seemed to conclude that immigration was inevitable and that their en­ ergy would better be spent dealing with those migrants in France rather than worrying about controls. At any rate, French unions had never concentrated solely on controls to the exclusion of the other facets of immigration. There gradually developed a perceptible shift of interest until union policy was no longer absolutely opposed to immigra­ tion. Instead, the movement focused its attention on a more specific critique of the government's policy, or lack of it, and an insistence on a planned and regulated migration. A second and important trend after 1961 was a gradual rap­ prochement between the two major confederations—the CGT and the CFDT. In 1966 the organizations signed an accord in which they promised to develop joint actions re­ lated to important issues. This new era of cooperation was eventually manifested in the immigration field. By 1971 the two confederations had issued a joint declaration on immi­ gration policy. The CGT has developed an elaborate economic analysis of the causes and consequences of immigration. International migration is a product of the failure of capitalist regimes— 23 Leon Gani, Syndicats et travailleurs immigres. My account of French unions draws heavily on this highly detailed study. Gani points out the restrictive stance of the CGT was more a reflection of the internal division of the labor movement and external political events (such as the Marshall Plan, the exclusion of the Communists from the government, and the Cold War) than of hostility toward immigration itself. 24 Castles and Kosack, p. 134.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

unemployment, neocolonialism, and uneven development.25 The CGT does not accept the notion that France only tem­ porarily needs manpower or that accepting Third World migrants can be some form of development aid. Rather, the present system of labor exchange is one means by which the capitalist managers attempt to overcome a major contradic­ tion in the system. Before 1962 the CFTC took what may be called a classic economic view of migration—that it re­ sulted from a disequilibrium in the supply and demand of labor in the world economy, but more recently the analysis of the CFDT has become much more critical.26 It is necessary to separate the unions' thought concerning immigration and their criticism of government policy, for even though their restrictive attitudes toward immigration have definitely softened since 1962, their opposition to official policy has if anything become more intense. And, since it is less dogmatic and more specific, it has become more effec­ tive. According to the CGT, immigration into France has been the direct result of government and patronat policy which has had but one goal: the search for profits. The CGT position is based on a classic statement of the industrial reserve army thesis. In addition, the federation believes that foreign workers are manipulated by the government and industry to divide workers against themselves. According to the CGT, the authorities "do not consider the problem of immigrant manpower as a temporary, secondary phenomenon, but as a fundamental element of their social and political policy."27 Perhaps the most important element of the unions' criti­ cism of the government's policy is their attack on clandestine and spontaneous immigration. The unions believe that both the government and business sector have consciously pro­ moted the development of spontaneous immigration for their own interests. The unions, then, have demanded neither an end to immigration nor free movement, but instead the 25

Gani, p. 62.

26

Ibid., pp. 62-64.

27

Ibid., p. 69.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT regulation and control of the flow in order to protect the migrant himself.28 It will be immediately obvious that after 1968 this was the avowed policy of both the government and patronat as well. One might have expected then a conver­ gence of the three sectors on immigration policy. But neither the CGT nor the CFDT believed that the policy shifts after 1968 reflected a real change of heart on the part of the au­ thorities. These latter had of course altered the terms in which they discussed migration, but their basic goals, it was thought, were the same. What had happened was that the bourgeoisie had suddenly realized that immigration from the Third World was becoming autonomous and inconvenient and that it was necessary to master it. The government and patronat demand for an organized immigration, it should be understood, had little in common with the system envisioned by the unions. Having opposed immigration for many years and being armed with an analysis which sees foreign workers as an industrial reserve army deliberately employed to undercut the economic status of French workers, the CGT has never­ theless pursued a formal policy of solidarity with migrants in France. In doing this, the organization has been squarely confronted by one of the most disturbing dilemmas con­ nected to immigration. The problem has been not so much one of theory—unable to stop immigration, the CGT has had little difficulty grasping the necessity of attempting to defend and organize foreign workers—as of practice—how can the unavoidably negative feelings associated with the immigration process be separated from the individual migrant himself? The efforts of the CGT to make its control policy and its domestic policy consistent have not been wholly successful (the widespread belief among workers that the "foreigners have come to eat our bread" is a legacy of their failure), but considerable headway has been made. Both the CGT and the CFDT assert that the basic interests 28

"Propos d'un syndicaliste," Esprit (April 1966), p. 692; Gani,

p. 71.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

of native workers and foreign workers in France are the same and that their positions are complementary rather than com­ petitive. This position has been most clearly stated in the Joint Communique on Immigration which the two confed­ erations issued in December 1971: [We] believe that immigrant workers are an integral part of the working class and are not competitive with French workers. [We] intend to locate our action with and for immigrant workers within the general framework of the struggle of all workers. . . . In this context, the par­ ticular situation of immigrant workers . . . is intolerable because of multiple social and syndical discriminations which they suffer. . . . That is why the CGT and the CFDT think that the community of interest which binds the French and immigrant workers should be translated into a reinvigorated struggle over the problems of housing, union rights, social rights, literacy and job training.29 Putting it even more dramatically in 1974, the CFDT re­ sponded to criticism that it was ignoring the needs of immi­ grants by observing that it had "always affirmed . . . its natural solidarity with respect to the most disadvantaged, and the strategic interest of the common struggle between French­ men and immigrants. At the same time, the CFDT realizes that in the capitalist system, we are all immigrants."30 This may at first seem an inconsistent position to hold, given the earlier argument about the use of immigrants to undermine the status and strength of the indigenous working class. In theory, however, relatively or completely free im­ migration could take place with none of the negative conse­ quences which the unions attribute to it as it is currently practiced by the French Government. Bringing about the conditions under which immigration could "conform to the interests of all workers" is the goal of the union policy on immigration.31 The core of this policy is the demand for the 29

Gani, p. 104. Nouvel Observateur, p. 42.

3 0 Le

31 Gani,

p. 104.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

equality of rights and status between national and foreign workers. This is in part simply the conventional trade-union demand for equal pay for migrants to avoid a fall in wage levels but is also the basis of a program that attempts to re­ solve at once the problem of immigration controls, the in­ compatibility of interests between the two working classes, and the cruelly deprived social and economic situation of migrants. The CGT has been the most precise in its demand for equality for foreign workers. At the second National Con­ ference for the Defense and Organization of Immigrant Workers which the federation sponsored in Paris in 1969 a Charte Revendicative was drawn up which included a de­ tailed policy on all aspects of the problem. The major com­ ponent of the CGT program is the Democratic and Social Statute which they insist be enacted to guarantee the rights and liberties of all foreign workers. As a first step toward that ultimate goal, which would abolish all discrimination "not only between French and immigrant workers, but equally between immigrants of different nationalities,"32 the CGT asks that all immigrants be given immediately the same rights as workers from the EEC. The CFDT has simply de­ manded that immigrants be given all the rights and privileges of French workers.33 Both the CGT and CFDT believe that the demand for absolute equality for immigrants in the social, economic, and union spheres will lead to a means of avoiding the impasse created by rivalries between national and foreign workers and by the contradiction between the unions' restrictive critique of the government's immigration policy and their strategy of solidarity with migrants. The key to their reasoning is to be found in their analysis of the function of immigration plan­ ning and regulation, the costs of a truly equal foreign labor to the employer, and the necessity of labor participation in the management of immigration. 32 33

Ibid., p. 80. Maryse Tripier, "Concurrence et difference," p. 340.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

The basic premise of the unions with regard to immigration regulation is that a failure of planning and adequate controls has caused present French policy to be enormously exploita­ tive. Spontaneous immigration, they argue, serves no one's purposes but the patronat. Only a carefully planned policy which guarantees each worker a job, adequate housing, and equal conditions of work can ensure that migrants will not be used to weaken the position of indigenous workers. Toward that end, both confederations endorse the principle of restoring the National Immigration Office to its monopoly over all immigration into France.34 The call for a uniform legal status for all foreign workers is a direct attack on the primary tool of French immigration policy—the bilateral accord. This device recommends itself to the policy maker because of its flexibility, allowing par­ ticular conditions to be set for one group of workers that do not apply to others. But according to the unions this dis­ crimination is one of the basic causes for the exploitation of workers, and a prime instrument of division. Since each nationality group is in France under separate agreements, conditions, and regulations, it is difficult for those trying to organize them to create a coherent and unified program. The general confusion over exactly which groups enjoy which rights simply contributes to the insecurity and precariousness of the migrant's status. The unions believe that if an absolute equality of rights were guaranteed for all foreign workers recruited to France the need for labor movements to concern themselves with controls over the numbers entering the country would be greatly reduced. Without the discrimination and inequality that accompany migrant workers, the compelling economic motives for their presence would disappear. Being no cheaper than native labor, foreign workers would seem less and less attractive to employers and immigration would become selfregulated, and that which did occur would not entail eco­ nomically harmful outcomes. 34 "Immigres: Le point de vue des syndicate," p. 15. The FontanetMarcellin circulaires described in ch. 3 did just this.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

The government, which is inextricably linked to business interests, cannot establish such a policy on its own, however, and for this reason the unions demand a greatly expanded role for the labor movement in the formulation of policy.35 In this effort they have been less than successful. In the joint statement released in February 1971, they promised to speak "with the Prime Minister and the public authorities to de­ mand a true consultation of representative union organiza­ tions, in view of elaborating an immigration policy conform­ ing to the interests of foreign and French workers. . . ."30 But the government is firm in its view that the unions are only one, and certainly not the most important, actor in the immigration policy process.37 In their demand for worker participation in the organiza­ tion of immigration policy, the confederations do not ask for the direct representation of foreign workers. In fact, they see themselves as the best spokesmen for the immigrant. As a CFDT official puts it, unions should represent the needs of the migrants since they are the only institutions which know them well.38 35

The CGT proposes that a National Committee be set up to play an advisory role over all matters relating to immigration. This com­ mittee would have representatives from labor, government, and business. The CFDT calls for the creation of a National Commission, with the same tripartite composition, to supervise directly every branch of ONI. The CFDT claims that "the unions have a right to control movements of labor entering and leaving France . . . in order to prevent exploitation and defend the interests of all workers." Gani, p. 74. 36 Ibid., p. 79. 37 In February 1972, M. Barbeau, then Director of Population and Migration in the Ministry of Labor, declared: "Immigration policy is not the responsibility of the unions. Their's is one point of view, a component of that policy, that is all . . . the government can consult the unions about those things which, in this country, are within the competence of the unions: the question of labor and employment which are, I repeat, one of the elements of our immigration policy but not the only one. . . ." "Pour une politique de !'immigration," n.p. 38 "Immigres: Le point de vue des syndicate," p. 15. Nor does the

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

This is but part of a more general difficulty which has plagued the unions. We have seen that the TUC in Britain refused to accept the idea that Commonwealth immigrants were in any significant way different from British workers. At least at first the French unions displayed the same tend­ ency. This was evident in their activities toward immigrants within the unions themselves. Bernard Granotier has criti­ cized them for taking this position and has argued that the immigrant has specific problems of such scope that one must conclude that foreigners as a group constitute a social stratum clearly distinct from the rest of the working class and whose interests, for example with respect to employ­ ment and professional training, can contradict those of national workers. A syndicalism representing all the work­ ing class will not hide these types of difficulties and will seek to elaborate a specific platform as a part of a total system of demands.39 Others have tried to show that the unions have been in the past and are increasingly aware of the special needs of for­ eign workers. Tripier, for example, suggests that in an effort to integrate the specific grievances and demands of different nationality groups into a genefal strategy, the unions have been forced to become more cognizant of those idiosyncratic demands. The author notes that the "universalistic" approach which denies that the particular nationality and origin of the migrant affects in any way his position in the economy is an outgrowth of the humanitarian and charitable approach to migrants which was the creation of the CFTC. Both the CGT and the CFDT have condemned such a strategy as demagogic and counterproductive.40 They have been motivated primarily by a desire to avert the fragmentation of the working class, CGT see a need for the direct representation of the foreign com­ munity. 39 Bernard Granotier, Les travailleurs immigres en France, p. 250. 40 Tripier pp. 344-345; Gani, pp. 214-215. 1

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

but in their efforts to avoid giving the impression that some portion of the working class does not share all the needs and problems of the rest they have been tempted to understate the differences that do exist and the result has been an un­ fortunate tendency to ignore the very real grievances of foreign workers. This has been complicated by the undeniable fact that the unions have feared that migrants, encouraged by gauchistes and Maoists, might organize and carry out their own cam­ paigns outside the established unions. To avoid this the con­ federations have failed to support spontaneous immigrant protest and have, consequently, at times appeared to be in­ excusably indifferent to the suffering of individuals. This has perhaps been most strikingly the case with respect to hunger strikers, usually clandestine immigrants who have attempted through this means to force the government to regularize their situation. While expressing sympathy for their plight, the unions have not really sanctioned their efforts. The CFDT explains its position by pointing out that hunger strikes are "acts of despair and not means of struggle with a class basis."41 In September 1973, during the height of a racial crisis in which dozens of immigrants were the victims of vicious attacks, the two confederations reacted circum­ spectly to a call by the L'Amicale des Algeriens en Europe for a strike along the Cote d'Azur. The CFDT announced its support "in the measure that the types of action are limited to work stoppages and general assemblies on the grounds of the work place." For its part the CGT feared "that immigrant workers, manipulated by sectarian elements (groupusculaires) will only indulge in actions which may harm their true interests."42 The role of the unions in combating racism has also been at issue. The argument which is just beginning to develop in Britain that racism can only be understood within the con­ text of the economic system which breeds it and profits from 4 1 Le 42

Nouvel Observateur 441 (21-29 April 1973), p. 42. For both quotes, Le Monde, 12 September 1973.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT it has been the dominant mode of analysis in France. The unions have attempted to confront racism in the ranks by explaining how such feeling is counterproductive and not based on a rational appraisal of the situation. They have also been involved in a number of national campaigns against racism. Still, they have been criticized by leftists for being either indifferent or paternalistic about racism.43 Certainly they have done too little, but if the record of the unions is not unblemished, it is fair to say that of the major institutions of French society they have been the most sensitive and re­ sponsible in the struggle over the role of foreign labor. Their failures represent the genuine contradictions any workingclass organization must deal with when the subject is immi­ gration. To their credit, the CGT and the CFDT have tried to develop a detailed program to remove those obstacles which impede working-class unity while at the same time they have shown indications of becoming more fully aware of the particularity of the immigrant role. Whether this pro­ gram can either be enacted or achieve its objectives remains to be seen. The revolutionary critique of this program, which will be examined momentarily, holds that since it is set within the existing capitalist system the trade-union strategy must ultimately fail. THE PARTIES OF THE LEFT AND IMMIGRANT LABOR A Working-Class Party in Power— The Case of British Labour

Of all the institutions of the working class in either country, the Labour Party perhaps most vividly illustrates the prob­ lems which such organizations encounter in dealing with immigration, and in many ways it has been the least suc43 For the activities of the unions dealing with racism, see "Immigres: Le point de vue des syndicate"; Gani, ch. 8; for critiques of their performance consult Granotier, pp. 249-255; Huseyin Celik, ed., "Les travailleurs immigres parlent," p. 13.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

cessful. I would suggest that this results from three factors: the first is that Labour has been a governing party, and thus actually responsible for immigration policy in a way none of the other institutions considered in this chapter have been; second, the party has failed to devise an approach to im­ migration that in any satisfactory way takes the class nature of immigration into account; and third, Labour's primary purpose is winning elections and to that end immigration has posed insoluble problems. Although the Labour Party initially opposed all controls on Commonwealth immigration as a matter of principle, by 1965 it had evolved to a position of accepting strict limita­ tions on entries and from there moved further and further to the right. Most critics of the party have chastised it for this and have praised the 1962 stand, especially the leader­ ship at that time of Hugh Gaitskell.44 But I would argue that opposition to all controls was an unrealistic position. It was based on some very foggy ideals of the British Common­ wealth, itself a humanized and improvised relic of past colonial adventures. There was in the opposition position little awareness of the economic factors at stake in the mi­ gration, neither its effect on the development of the sending countries, nor on the position of the migrant and indigenous workers in the British economy. Commitment to completely free immigration can be part of a socialist program, but it is clear that the Labour Party's stance was based as much on nostalgia and sentiment as on ideology, and it backed the party into a corner out of which it has yet to emerge. In fairness it must be admitted that in the context of the debate in 1961, to oppose controls was to stand against a clear effort to stop nonwhite immigration and could be seen then as the logical position for those against racial discrimination. But the Labour Party helped define that situation and it should have worked to change the definition so that controls 44This has been the opinion of liberals and radicals alike. See E.J.B. Rose; Paul Foot, Immigration and Race in British Politics·, Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

could have been instituted on some basis other than race. This was what some members of the party seemed to want to do in 1972. The Opposition Green Paper written by the Labour Party Study Group on Immigration represents the latest thinking in the party on the subject during the years covered by this study.45 The report is clearly to the left of official party policy and whether its recommendations will be implemented is doubtful. For one thing, the whole issue of immigration has tended to become lost in the more pressing matters of rising unemployment and the general economic crisis. The Working Party begins by declaring that immigration policy cannot be based on racial criteria for three reasons. The first is that a socialist policy simply cannot be racially discriminatory be­ cause it would be inconsistent with the egalitarian principles of brotherhood that characterize the movement. The second is that a discriminatory immigration policy increases the diffi­ culties that nonwhite immigrants face if they are admitted. The contradiction between a discriminatory entry policy and a nondiscriminatory domestic policy is simply too great. It is important to note that the report does not regard any system of controls as inherently incompatible with an ac­ ceptable domestic policy—only one based purely on race. The third reason is that the notion that strict controls on nonwhite immigrants are necessary to keep their numbers and the rate of their increase low enough to discourage prej­ udice and resentment is false. In fact, the institution of con­ trols seems undeniably to have encouraged the control lobby to seek a more and more discriminatory policy. The second basic proposal of the Green Paper is that the citizenship law of the U.K. be amended to clarify the status and rights of citizens. Although the members are not sure exactly how the law should be revised, they think that all citizens should have the right of free entry. This suggestion is not really helpful since it transfers decisions about immi45

Labour Party Study Group, Citizenship, Immigration and Inte­ gration.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

gration from the immigration to the citizenship law and since it is unwilling to make specific suggestions about the future of those persons now considered "Citizens of the U.K. and the Colonies." The report goes on to argue that controls should be linked to an effective voucher system which would grant entry per­ mits on a first-come first-served basis, pending an examina­ tion of skills, labor shortages, and other nonracial criteria. The report condemns the Conservative Party's 1971 Immi­ gration Act which it says must be understood in its political terms: It is not designed merely to control the numbers of future coloured immigrants; that could have been achieved by using existing powers. It is designed to create a system of control which will make it increasingly unattractive to be an immigrant in Britain, particularly an immigrant out­ wardly identifiable by colour; its effect will be to create conditions in which it will become more attractive to many immigrants to leave rather than remain.46 With respect to programs for the welfare of immigrants, the report merely endorses the trends already apparent in Labour policy. The members write that areas with high con­ centrations of immigrants should receive greatly increased aid but "the emphasis must be on social need generally, not merely or primarily on 'welfare for immigrants.' "" This is, of course, the rationale for the Urban Programme. The Labour Party has been caught between the dictates of its conscience, ideology, and militants, and the imperatives of a winning electoral strategy. Fear of losing working-class support to the populistic Conservative charade was one of the primary reasons that its leaders caved in to pressure for racially restrictive controls. Whether this helped the party at the polls is not clear, that it seriously damaged the leader­ ship's standing among the "Labour left" is certain. What is more, the party completely forfeited the opportunity to inte46

Ibid., p. 21.

47

Ibid., p. 36.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

grate the injustices and indignities being heaped on the mi­ grant worker into a more systematic policy for the reform (moderate or otherwise) of British society. The Labour Party consciously disavowed the legitimacy of pursuing a political strategy built around immigrant demands and its basic commitment to the main contours of the British system caused it to see immigrants as a threat to the social peace. Left-Wing Criticism of Labour Policy Political groups to the left of the Labour Party have not been influential in the immigration policy debate. More im­ portant, probably, are left-dissident factions in the party itself. But there have been criticisms and alternatives to the Labour approach which are interesting, not because they are likely to be adopted by even a Labour government, but be­ cause they raise issues about the proper stance for socialists to take. There are two kinds of analyses I want to discuss— those which are designed as blueprints for government policy and those which are primarily revolutionary interpretations of the functions of immigration and are, consequently, out­ side the policy debate itself. Those who have struggled to devise a socialist immigration policy have inevitably focused on the problem of establishing legitimate criteria for controls. The Communist Party ob­ serves that "governments have the right to r'egulate immigra­ tion and emigration but both Tory and Labour governments have been responsible for developing immigration policies based on racial discrimination which lead to the undermining of the positive efforts even of government-sponsored race re­ lations bodies."48 The International Socialists, in a pamphlet written by Paul Foot, argue that all regulation of immigration must be discontinued because (1) immigration will be selfregulated by the market anyway; (2) overcrowding and in­ sufficient social services are endemic in capitalist societies and not significantly affected by migration; (3) controls 48 Communist Party of Great Britain, 1974 Election Manifesto, p. 9. See also Joan Bellamy's pamphlet, Unite Against Racialism.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

necessarily create individual hardships; and (4) they foster a contract labor system, restricting the political and tradeunion role of the immigrant. The International Socialists seek to organize workers into trade unions and to demand abso­ lute equality of working conditions for all workers in any one industry of work.49 One socialist writer has started with most of Foot's as­ sumptions and drawn the opposite conclusion: that immigra­ tion into Britain should be halted altogether. According to Ann Ward, immigration does have adverse effects on the interests of British workers and to deny this is to encourage the development of racism.50 She believes that the initial decision of the left to oppose the restrictions on Common­ wealth immigration was not based on any clear socialist principles and has led the left to greet each new initiative in the field with "hysterical emotionalism rather than analysis of the realities."51 Exploring the justifications for open im­ migration, she concludes: Belief in free and unfettered immigration is not part of the tradition of the Socialist movement. In its general form it is a heritage from a liberal free-market ideology; in its Commonwealth form it is a hang-over of Imperial patron­ age, and in its middle-class form a question of simple selfinterest.52 One of the most lucid expositions of the immigrant-race question is that developed by A. Sivanandan of the Institute of Race Relations. Based on a Marxist analysis of the role of immigrant workers as "second-class production factors," his original interpretation of the linkages between racism, dis­ crimination, and economic exploitation is of particular inter49Paul

Foot, Workers Against Racism, pamphlet, pp. 11-14. A Socialist Approach to Immigration, p. 190. This article has been reprinted by the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades as Stop Immigration and Racialism, n.d. The union's preface suggests that the fear of a right-wing, neo-fascist resurgence is the primary motive for endorsing Ward's views. 51Ward, p. 189. 52 Ibid., p. 194. 50

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

est here. Distinguishing Britain's system of quasi-racism from the fully developed racism of South Africa and the simple racialism which is the bane of liberal opinion, Sivanandan argues that discrimination serves to maximize the surplus value created by migrant workers. But racism also high­ lights the basic contradiction of British society—the radical incompatibility of monopoly capitalism with liberal values. The government is caught ultimately in a difficult bind. Al­ though the conflict between liberal principles and racism is economically beneficial in the short run, eventually the social costs become too onerous. The government, then, must either radicalize the liberal principles (a highly unlikely prospect) or deliberalize the political system (that is, engage in wholesale repression of the minority and its allies). Sivanandan suggests that the peculiarly intense character of race conflict in Britain, compared to European experience, can be explained in part as the result of the tendency for the citizenship rights which most Commonwealth immigrants possessed to intensify the disjuncture between the ideals and reality of the British liberal ethos. He goes on to point out that government policy has been for some time directed toward the elimination of those rights of citizenship.53 The Communist-Socialist Opposition in France

This discussion of left-wing parties in France will focus primarily on the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF), and particularly on the aspects of their Com­ mon Program of Government adopted in 1972 which relate to immigration.54 None of the major left parties have had a great deal to say about immigrants until relatively recently. In general they have limited their activity to rhetorical at­ tacks on government policy, protestations of solidarity with 53

"Race, Class and Power"; "Race, Class and the State." The position of the PCF is in most respects identical to that of the CGT as one would expect. The most complete exposition of the PCF's role is Andre Vieuguet, Frangais et immigres. 54

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

migrants, and condemnations of racism. The reasons for this should by now be clear—migrants pose difficult problems and they do not necessarily or easily fit into traditional cate­ gories of analysis. Furthermore, they have lacked the essen­ tial political privileges that would have allowed them to be recruited and organized by parties for electoral or agitational purposes. Besides, many migrants are apolitical or petit bourgeois in their orientation. Given the essential electoral strategy of the PS-PCF coalition, a strong defense of the rights of immigrants might have reduced its support among the working class. All of these factors have led the established parties to tread lightly in this area and forfeit the immigra­ tion issue to the revolutionary left and counterrevolutionary right. The stance of the PCF and the PS must be interpreted in light of the rapprochement which developed between the Communist and non-Communist elements in the late sixties and which culminated in 1972 in the Union of the Left, and the growing seriousness of attempts by the left to come to power through elections. The official program which was agreed upon by the Union and which served as the platform of its candidate, Frangois Mitterand, in the 1974 presidential election actually had little to say explicitly about immigrants. The Common Program promised that the "Plan will forecast the number of immigrant workers to be received each year in order to clarify the social and economic measures to be taken. Immigrant workers will benefit from the same rights as French workers. The law will guarantee their political, social, and syndical rights."55 Elsewhere the document said that "all discrimination affecting young people, women, older workers, immigrants or whatever kind of wage-earner will be suppressed."56 These rather cryptic remarks need to be un­ derstood, however, in the context of a more general analysis 55 Programme commun du gouvernement, pp. 57-58, emphasis in original. 56 Ibid., p. 107.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

of immigration which has been developed by the members of the Union of the Left.57 The communist-socialist interpretation of immigration flows from an essentially Marxist analysis couched in terms of class and political power, not in the language of "social problems" as is often the case in Britain. The critique of government policy involves an assessment of the uses of mi­ gration for the bourgeoisie. The 19th Congress of the PCF in 1966 condemned the immigration policy of the authorities which results in a scandalous over-exploitation of foreign workers and in inhuman living conditions for them. This policy theorizes about xenophobia and racism in order to divide the work­ ing class. At the same time it permits the patronat to in­ crease its profits and to hold down the salaries of French workers.58 French policy is seen as a transparent effort to create a re­ serve army. In 1966 the PCF and the Italian Communist Party released a joint statement which concluded that 57 Although there were differences between the PS and the PCF in these matters, the proposals of the Joint Program did not represent a minimum upon which the signatories could agree—this cannot ex­ plain the lack of attention migrants received. A continuing relative indifference was the more likely cause. For example, in his introduc­ tion to the PCF's edition of the Common Program, George Marchais, Party General Secretary, describes the "popular union" which he believes can provide the means for restructuring French society: 'The Popular Union is the unity of all the social strata which are victims of big capital and its politics." In his survey of those groups, Marchais includes workers, skilled and unskilled; technicians and engineers; peasants; salaried staff; small shopkeepers; artisans; teach­ ers; intellectuals; small and medium-sized entrepreneurs; young peo­ ple; nonparty members; Christians; and even patriots; but not mi­ grants. He concludes: "The Popular Union is the coming together of all the democratic and national working forces who wish to work for the realization of the common program . . ." (pp. 42-43, em­ phasis added). 58 Quoted in Charles Barontini, "Immigration," p. 93.

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

despite the appearance of appreciable unemployment, the Gaullist regime intensifies its policy of immigration in hopes of putting cheap manpower at the disposal of the monopoly capitalists, thus assuring a maximum of profit and favoring the creation of a reserve of unemployed workers to hold down the salaries of all workers.59 It is the potential division of the workers that most disturbs the PCF. Their response is to affirm the need for solidarity, to deny that immigrant workers either hurt or promote the status of French workers, to refute the theory that migrants constitute a subproletariat, and to excoriate those "Trotskyists" who seek to organize them into separate unions, parties, or groups outside the CGT and the PCF.60 There is obviously something here besides a fine appreciation of the theoretical need for unity—the PCF is intent on maintaining its own hegemony among working-class movements and the efforts to organize migrants separately are a clear threat to its position. Georges Marchais had highlighted this concern as early as 1963 when in a report on immigration to the Political Bureau of the PCF he concluded that the "problem is to know how we are going to work so that the activity of the party with respect to immigration is integrated with our general work."61 In the debate over the special needs of immigrants versus their primary status as workers like any others, then, the PCF firmly believes that the commonalities outweigh the differences. While the party admits that migrants are exploited to a degree French workers normally do not experience and although there is a compelling need for special demands oriented around the migrants' requirements, these must be tightly integrated within the total program and clearly should not develop any autonomy. The proposal in the Joint Program for equality of rights 59 "Un accord des Partis Communistes Franfais et Italien sur !'emigration Italienne en France," p. 6. 60 Barontini, p. 98. 61 Le Monde, 23 April 1963. See also Marchais, "L'immigration en France."

ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE LEFT

between foreign and French workers is the familiar plan for a Democratic and Social Statute for Immigrants. The belief that the fulfillment of this pledge would end the abuses which immigration often creates and end immigration too for all practical purposes has already been discussed with reference to the unions. Frangois Mitterand expressed this view in the 1974 campaign.62 Meantime, however, the Common Pro­ gram does not blush at frankly proposing a controlled immi­ gration. There is no feeling here that immigration regulation is of itself morally repugnant or offensive to socialist prin­ ciples. On the contrary, it is an essential tool of economic planning. The Common Program is, after all, basically a document about planning for a socialist France: Democratic planning will have as its goal the satisfaction of individual and collective needs. It will assure the co­ herent operation of the national economy. The Plan is a political act which will engage the government in the de­ cisive domains of economic policy under the responsibility of elected Assemblies.63 To forfeit the conscious manipulation of immigration to the vagaries of the market is not acceptable. Especially since control will be a part of an elaborate system of cooperation between France and the developing nations to provide aid for economic growth for the latter. This is what might be called a state planning approach to immigration and is one of the key issues which separates the established left parties from the extreme left as we shall see. Gaston Deferre, the leader of the Socialist Group in the National Assembly and Mayor of Marseilles, elaborated on this outlook in 1973. He called for a temporary, strictly limited migration with guaranteed equality of conditions. These would be paid for by increasing the assessments made on employers who used migrants. In return for the use of their workers, the exporting countries would receive a greatly enlarged economic aid contribution 02

p . 68 .

RACISM AND NATIONALISM

are determined that their children shall not grow up under the shadow of it. My judgment then is this: the people of England will not endure it. . . . I do not believe it is in human nature that a country . . . should passively watch the transformation of whole areas which lie at the heart of it into alien territory.40 The series of speeches which he delivered in 1968 made Enoch Powell one of the most important and controversial politicians in Britain. Just before the April Birmingham oration, a Gallup Poll had shown that only 1 per cent of the population named Powell as their choice for Conservative leader should Heath retire. But a poll taken in May, after the speech, showed that 24 per cent named Powell, a truly astounding shift in opinion.41 He fairly dominated public dis­ cussion of race and immigration for the next several years and "Powellism" became the bete-noire of liberals and Tories alike. It is not my intention to attempt a comprehensive re­ view of his career, nor to provide a systematic analysis of his thought.42 Nevertheless, his attitudes and behavior were such a central issue that they demand careful discussion, and it is my feeling that his role in the immigration arena cannot be understood out of the context of the major contours of his political career and of his ideology. Among the events in Powell's life that seem to have had a 40

41 Studlar, p. 379. Ibid., pp. 73-74. The best sources on Powell include Foot and Utley. Foot traces his political career as it is related to the immigration issue. Utley of­ fers rather detailed summaries of Powell's views on a wide range of subjects. Andrew Roth's Enoch Powell is a useful and detailed bi­ ography. Other, shorter works include Roger Hall, "Enoch Powell and the Anti-Party Tradition"; Brian Lee, "Enoch Powell's Lan­ guage"; John Wood, ed., Powell and the 1970 Election; Labour Party Research Department, "Powell and his Allies"; Tom Stacey, Immi­ gration and Enoch Powell: Tom Nairn, "Enoch Powell"; V. S. Anand and A. F. Ridley, Enigma of Enoch Powell. For Powell's own speeches, see his Freedom and Reality; Still to Decide; Common Market: The Case Against; Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out. 42

RACISM AND NATIONALISM

major impact was his service with the British army in India during the Second World War. He was greatly moved by the spectacle of British rule there and became a passionate de­ fender of Empire. In fact, this seems to have been the primary factor in his decision not to return to Australia, where he had been a professor of Greek, but instead to go to London and offer his services to the Conservative Central Office. Nevertheless, his views on India underwent a dramatic trans­ formation. Powell had hoped to help persuade the Tories to fight to keep India and, when she was lost, he at first urged that she be retaken by force.43 When it was clear that India could not be recovered, however, Powell passed from being an Imperial zealot to being one who denied that the Empire had ever existed. He argued that the British had not even perceived the existence of the Empire "until very nearly the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria."44 Furthermore, the per­ sistence of the myth that Britain had once possessed a great Empire was pernicious, he thought, because it was false and "being false, [it entails] upon Britain grave psychological damage and errors of judgment."45 The role of the Empire and a parallel "myth" Powell at­ tempted to refute—that Britain had once been the workshop of the world46—are central keys to unlocking the enigma of Enoch Powell. He is first and foremost a nationalist. He possesses a romantic love for all the ritual, pageantry, and patriotic symbolism of the Crown, of constituted authority, and legitimate power with which Britain abounds. For Powell, the Empire and especially India was the centerpiece of this glorious array. The Empire both endowed Britain with a sense of purpose and defined for her an identity. The collapse of the Empire, as well as Britain's precipitous fall from the circle of leading economic powers, created a great crisis of national identity. Powell saw it as his purpose and duty to help refashion British nationalism around new ideas and symbols appropriate to the postcolonial age. One aspect 43 45

Utley, p. 60. Ibid.

44 46

Powell, Freedom and Reality, p. 24. Ibid.

RACISM AND NATIONALISM

of this, as we shall see, was his attempt to prevent the further deterioration of British, one should really say "English," ethnic homogeneity. But it was evident in much of his other political activity—for example, his efforts to preserve all the paraphernalia of British traditionalism that he could.47 Powell's political career began in 1950 when he was first elected to Parliament, winning the seat in Wolverhampton which he held continually until 1974. He was not without higher ambitions, though it is difficult to know exactly when he decided that he would like to be leader of the Tories.48 What is more certain is that very early he set out to become a Minister. So strong, however, was Powell's commitment to his mission as the instrument of British revitalization that on a number of occasions throughout his career he resigned or declined ministerial posts on principle. It is arguable that his motives were liberally mixed with personal calculations, but it is hard not to conclude that several times Powell stood by his vision while those who played the role of loyal party member advanced ahead of him. Between 1965 and 1968 Powell engaged in a running battle with Edward Heath, the Conservative Party, and in­ deed postwar British history. Powell wished to replace Heath as leader of the Tories so that he might reorient the party to the changed environment in which it found itself. In this he no doubt saw himself as not unlike some latter-day Disraeli who would provide the leadership for another of those marvelous adaptations to reality that make the Con47 On

one occasion Powell rose in the Commons to vigorously ob­ ject to removing the Monarch's queenship over the Commonwealth. He suggested that in doing so he represented an "indispensable ele­ ment in the British Constitution and British life" (Freedom and Reality, p. 24). He once explained his refusal to serve in Home's cabinet by saying that the latter had disgraced himself by renounc­ ing his hereditary peerage. Utley, pp. 92-93. 48 Powell first made his leadership ambitions public when he fought Maudling and Heath for the right to succeed Alec Douglas Home in 1965. He placed a poor third, but announced that he had "left his visiting card."

RACISM AND NATIONALISM

servative Party unique. The party, thus rearmed, would be the vehicle by which the British people could adjust them­ selves to Britain's new role in the world. Powell's plans did not achieve their purpose. The ascent of his own career was slowed considerably by his resigna­ tions and refusals of office.49 Furthermore, his political views were so clearly in the minority that it looked very unlikely that he could ever lead the party, certainly not as it presently existed. In almost all of his views, Powell was directly at odds with Tory policy and especially with Edward Heath. Against Heath's highly pragmatic, technocratic, European vision of the Conservative future—the "human face of capitalism"—Powell offered laissez-faire economics, strict social discipline, bitter anti-Americanism, and a form of "Little England" nationalism that renounced both the Euro­ pean community and the Commonwealth. Powell became a constant thorn in the side of the leadership, and an increas­ ingly troublesome critic of its behavior. Had Powell been purely an opportunistic politician, as some of his critics have claimed, he would have abandoned this monumental struggle, moderated his views and, if not become leader, surely enjoyed a distinguished ministerial career. But Powell was after much bigger fish. His record since 1965 makes sense if it is under­ stood as the behavior of a man who believes that preemi­ nently the life of nations is lived in the mind, in myths, and that if one can simply alter opinions, beliefs, and myths, then history can be turned round. 49 In 1958 Powell, then serving as Financial Secretary to the Treasury under Peter Thorneycroft, joined his boss in resigning in protest of the government's refusal to adopt Thorneycroft's defla­ tionary schemes. Powell subsequently refused the offer of the Min­ istry of Education because the economic principles on which he had resigned were still not accepted. Eventually he became Minister of Housing under MacMillan. Threatening to resign when MacMillan became implicated in the cover-up of the Profumo affair, he refused to accept a post under his successor, Home. For these events, see Roth, p. 221, and Utley, pp. 92-93.

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In an important statement which he delivered in Dublin in 1964 Powell elaborated on this view: The life of nations, no less than that of men, is lived largely in the imagination. It is what an individual thinks about his life, much more than the objective conditions in which he lives, which determines whether he will be happy or unhappy. . . . As with individuals, so it is with that mysterious composite being, the nation. . . . For many this corporate imagination . . . can be more important to their happiness or unhappiness than their private imagina­ tion. . . . I believe that the nature of a people's corporate imagination always goes far to determine the quality of life for the individuals who compose it. . . . If this is true, then nothing is more important to the well-being of a na­ tion than what . . . it thinks of itself.50 Powell was acutely aware as he stated on another occasion that "for a long time now the British have been asking one another: When and how are we going to get back our pride and confidence in ourselves."51 He wished to be the source of a renewed British sense of efficacy: "We are not a drowning man clutching at a rope or screaming for someone to throw him a life belt."52 Certain critics have shown, rather easily, that the various elements which make up Powell's political ideology and pro­ gram do not cohere logically, do not form a tightly reasoned system. This has led to the charge of either intellectual superficiality or of sheer opportunism.53 But Tom Nairn, who himself characterizes Powell's thought as an "incredible patchwork of nostrums," argues that "no critique of such incoherence can afford to ignore the need upon which it 50

Freedom and Reality, p. 245. Ibid., p. 244. 5 2 Common Market: The Case Against, p. 12. 53 Foot tends to assess Powell's intellectual rigor as poor while Anand and Ridley want to view Powell in starkly opportunistic terms. 51

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works: in relationship to reality it may possess a drivingforce which it lacks when considered simply as a set of ideas."54 Powell saw himself as the man for the times, but, like so many prophets, he seemed to be unable to inspire the honor of his countrymen. They showered him with indifference when he lectured on the market economy, argued against permissiveness, and made quaint and archaic appeals to tra­ dition. Then he turned his attention to immigration and the audience he had searched for in vain was suddenly his. Why did Powell choose immigration when he did? Why would someone who had had very little to say on the subject pre­ viously suddenly perceive it to be a problem of "immense dimensions"?55 The interest of these questions for us is not confined to an explanation of one man's political career; rather, they help us understand the linkages between political leaders and followers and the way in which immigration and race became mass issues. The Politics of Populism and Immigration

There are at least three theories to explain Enoch Powell's adoption of the immigration issue: that he is a racist dema­ gogue in the classic mode, that he succumbed to or expressed constituency pressures, and that he is a populist politician giving vent to the suppressed feelings of many Britons. The first explanation can be dismissed out of hand.56 The others deserve careful consideration. 54

Nairn, p. 6. at Walsall, February 1968, reprinted in Smithies and Fiddick, p. 19. 50 Heath, in effect, charged Powell with racism when he sacked him from the Shadow Cabinet after the Birmingham speech. But this is clearly too simplistic. Certainly Powell entertains no formal racist attitudes if these are understood in the strict meaning of the term to imply the inferiority of one race to another and to justify the domina­ tion of one group by another. (See Utley, p. 27.) Nor is there any­ thing in Powell's background to suggest that he is personally bigoted or prejudiced against nonwhites. 55Speech

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On the question of constituency pressures the evidence is rather mixed. Paul Foot, in his useful study of Powell, demonstrates that immigration was not the intense issue in Wolverhampton that Powell has tried to make it seem. Furthermore, he shows that regardless of the seriousness of the issue, Powell demonstrated absolutely no interest in it for many years.57 In those rare early statements on immigration, Powell assumed a very moderate stance. He returned again and again to the theme that though it would be difficult, those immigrants already in Britain could and must be assimi­ lated.58 He favored tightly restricting new immigration as the necessary precondition of the achievement of assimilation. He believed, however, that there was "an inescapable obli­ gation of humanity" to permit the wives and children of immigrants already there to join them.59 All of this suggests that the racial situation in Wolverhampton itself and the ex­ pression of concern which its citizens made to their parlia­ mentary representative cannot have been the major factor in Powell's decision to focus on the question. Still, the Mid­ lands was an area of sizable immigration and it was there that the first rumblings against free entry were heard. Had Powell represented a constituency in Scotland it is unlikely he could have become the major spokesman against immigration. Clearly his experiences in Wolverhampton provided some opportunity for him to become acquainted with the potential social ills that immigration could entail, more clearly yet they provided his statements with an air of legitimacy they would have otherwise lacked. While the direct ties between Powell and his own constit­ uents seem to have been tenuous, there can be little doubt that he expressed the real fears and anxieties of the white English man and woman. In doing so Powell put himself forward as a populist, one who understood the people, sym­ pathized with their plight, and would represent them against that small minority, the elitist clique, which controlled the 57 58

See Foot, Rise of Enoch Powell, ch. 2. 59 Cited in Foot, p. 71. Roth, pp. 313-314.

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government and the means of communications and which cared not one whit for what the common man thought: Acts of an enemy, bombs from the sky, they could un­ derstand; but now, for reasons quite inexplicable, they might be driven from their homes and their property de­ prived of value by an invasion which the Government apparently approved and their fellow-citizens elsewhere viewed with complacency.00 It is easy to make light of Powell's populism. Paul Foot is especially talented at this type of criticism. It is certainly true, as Foot suggests, that if a man came up to Powell in the street and said that "the capitalist system was so intolerable that Britain in a few years time would not be worth living in," Powell would surely keep this odd bit of information to him­ self.61 It is also true that Powell's roots in the working class were shallow to say the least. But it would be foolish to deny that Powell, no matter how distorted or exaggerated, was giving voice to grass-roots opinion. But why should Enoch Powell be attracted to populist politics? Powell loved the Conservative Party, but he was not a "party man." He believed that there were times when one rightly placed his primary loyalties elsewhere. There were a great number of points on which official Conservative Party policy diverged markedly from what Powell took to be the national good. He had set out initially to transform the party from within through the sheer intellectual power and rigor of his arguments. Very quickly, however, he must have seen that such a strategy would achieve only limited gains. His own ministerial career was sharply curtailed because of in­ terminable ideological and personal disputes and his plan of becoming leader was looking less and less realistic. Powell was in most respects an outsider in the Tory ranks. He clearly could never have become a part of what he saw as the Churchill, MacMillan, Home, Hogg clique to whom position 60Daily 61

T e l e g r a p h , 7 February 1967; cited in Foot, p. 62. Ibid., p. 113.

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and kinship meant more than ability. But neither was he at home with the "new breed" of Conservative leader repre­ sented by Ted Heath. For though Powell and Heath shared many characteristics of social background and career, their vision of the Tory future was markedly different. Powell combined the drive and competence of the self-made man with social and political views which would have been more appropriate on the Tory side of the House of Lords than on the Commons Front Bench. Accepted by none of the major groups among the party leadership, Powell worked largely in solitude with few close political friends and very little influ­ ence among his parliamentary colleagues.62 This lack of ability to effect radical changes in the party from the inside must be seen as one of the primary reasons that led Powell to appeal over the party's head, in a sense, to the people. I am not suggesting that this was part of a purely cynical strategy to advance his own career—that it would do so he certainly must have hoped—but the future of Enoch Powell and the future of Britain are not easily dis­ tinguished in Powell's thought. He identified himself so closely with the "soul" of the people whom he represented against the government and against the party that it would be misleading to dismiss his populism as either a farce or a self-interested grab for power.63 There are those who argue that the only reason Powell chose to concentrate his energies on the race question was that he discovered, to his apparent surprise, that the immigra­ tion issue was very "combustible" material.64 But when this argument is made without benefit of an explanation of the purposes to which the issue was to be put, or when it simply assumes that personal advancement was the only important 62

Utley, p. 169. Hall has compared Powell to a number of political deviants in British history—Chamberlain, Oswald Mosley, Winston Churchill, Desmond Donnelly, Aneurin Bevan. In these terms Powell is in the tradition of the antiparty maverick. 64 Foot, p. 111. 03

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purpose involved, its usefulness is diminished considerably. The ability of the immigration issue to stir the people and its subsequent appeal to Powell must be understood in terms of his basic concern with British national identity. As I pointed out earlier, Enoch Powell saw it as his special vocation to help forge a new British identity for the troubled contemporary era. Opposition to nonwhite, non-European immigration was a perfectly logical and consistent component of a program for national revitalization. In this sense, the fact that Powell became an outspoken proponent of immigra­ tion restriction is not surprising. What is puzzling is why he waited so long to launch his attack. Perhaps Powell spoke most forcefully of the link between immigration and British identity in a speech delivered in January 1969 at the Royal Commonwealth Society. Immigration, he contended, was a more profound issue than Common Market membership, which meant itself the "gradual loss of our national identity in a political sense," for the present Commonwealth immigra­ tion meant the "transformation of the nation itself, its popula­ tion and its character, on a scale beyond what most people can conceive possible and to which there is nothing remotely comparable in its past history."65 Powell asserted that "no government has the moral right to alter, or permit to be altered, the character and the identity of a nation without that nation's knowledge and without that nation's will."66 In all of his deliberations on immigration Powell sought to create a dichotomy between the British, or more commonly the "English," on the one hand, and the foreigners on the other. His language was suffused with images of the alien, the enemy which was endangering the existence of the nation. Military metaphors abound in almost all Powell's speeches on immigration, lending to his remarks a sense of urgency and foreboding and encouraging a closing of ranks against the common foe. All of this proceeded from his essential beliefs about the nature of national communities, the mean­ ing of citizenship, and the prerequisites of sovereignty. 65

Still to Decide, p. 198.

66

Ibid., p. 204.

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Speaking in Wolverhampton in 1970 Powell proclaimed that "there are at this moment parts of this town which have ceased to be a part of England, except in the sense that they are situated within it geographically."67 On another occasion he argued that his use of the term "alien territory" to describe areas of immigrant settlement was meant in the "most literal and factual sense—in all but the juridical sense," and that the process of immigration "is that of an invasion, not, of course, with the connotation either of violence or a premedi­ tated campaign but in the sense that a people find themselves displaced in the only country that is theirs. . . ."68 In 1971 in Southall he remarked that "it is more truly when he looks into the eyes of Asia that the Englishman comes face to face with those who will dispute with him the possession of his native land."69 Although Powell repeatedly cautioned that the immigrant himself was not culpable for these evils, he nevertheless explicitly identified the immigrant with the enemies of the state. The most controversial incident in this vein occurred when Powell speculated that the Home Office had been so con­ sistently in error in projecting the size of immigration entries and the rate of immigrant births that "one begins to wonder if the Foreign Office was the only department of state into which enemies of this country had been infiltrated."70 On a separate occasion he mused that Britain's "enemies must have been unable to believe their good fortune as they watched the numbers of West Indians, Africans, and Asians concen­ trated in her major cities mount toward the two million mark to be exploited by this evil force, the enemy which is at­ tacking us."71 The themes of exclusion and inclusion which one finds in Powell's speeches and writings underlie not only his attitudes toward Commonwealth immigration but also his position on the future of Ulster, the Common Market, and the Common07

68

69

70

Times, 11 June 1970. Ibid., p. 209. 7 1 Times, 13 June 1970.

Still to Decide, p. 190. Times, 17 January 1970.

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wealth. They provide a cohesion to his political views that some have not seen. "The ultimate fact in human society, and in the world of states and nations is belonging or not belong­ ing," he observed in a passage devoted to Ulster.72 The great failing of British government has been its inability to clearly state who is and who is not a member of the British nation. Powell felt that much of the difficulty the country had found itself in with regard to immigration as well as other matters sprang from the British Nationality Act of 1948 which, as was shown in chapter 2, created a mixed bag of separate statuses for persons who had rights as British citizens. Powell opposed this policy strenuously. For example, he held the heretical view that citizens of the Irish Republic should not, for the purposes of immigration, be treated as British citizens since they were not.73 He opposed the whole idea of a British Commonwealth since it was a "sham" that had no substan­ tive content: "I believe . . . that the great majority of people in this country see no reality or substance in the proposition that they belong to a Commonwealth comprising all that vast aggregation of territories . . . which by colonization, by ces­ sion, by conquest, by purchase . . . had come to be under the domination or protection of the British Crown. . . ."74 His advocacy of repatriation was based, he said, on the observa­ tion that the "alienness" of fhe immigrants was increasing rather than declining and that the "great.majority . . . con­ sider themselves strangers here, as sojourners in a strange land."75 The twists and turns which have occurred in Powell's political fortunes since 1968 should be interpreted in terms of an essentially "Gaullist" strategy for attaining political leadership. Powell has long been an admirer of de Gaulle and he has more than once compared himself to the former French President.76 Like him, Powell had no taste for the 72

73 Times, 9 February 1970. Cited in Nairn, p. 10. 75 Times, 17 January 1970. and Reality, p. 188. 70 Andrew Roth develops this interpretation. He points out that after his sacking as Shadow Minister of Defense by Heath, Powell 7 i Freedom

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politics of the party hack who rose to the top through obse­ quiousness and doing his duty to the organization. Powell believed, I think it is fair to argue, that when the moment arrived, the people would spontaneously turn to him as the only person capable of leading them out of disaster. He per­ ceived that he could never become the leader of his party or his government under normal circumstances. What was needed was a genuine crisis, a catastrophe that would dis­ credit the present government and awaken the public to their need for Powell who would, like de Gaulle, answer the call to duty. Waiting in the wings during his exile from the Tory Shadow Cabinet, Powell sensed that the depth of public resentment over Commonwealth immigration might be in­ sufficient to create the conditions for his advancement. Around 1970 he perceptibly shifted his focus to the Common Market, and he thought that the issue first of British member­ ship and then of her withdrawal might, as immigration had not, galvanize the forces he represented to such an extent that they would sweep him to the Tory leadership. To precipitate these developments Powell announced in winter 1974 that he would not be a candidate in the election Heath had just called. The issue on which the campaign was to be fought—namely, "Who rules Britain?"—was a "fraud," according to Powell. He then proceeded to make another of his spectacular speeches in which he implicitly called for a Labour victory since that party was committed to a renego­ tiation of the terms of Common Market membership and had vowed to submit the question to the people.77 was urged by his advisers to retire to his home in Wolverhampton and emerge only occasionally for important pronouncements. As the crisis deepened (exactly what crisis was not clear) the leaders of both parties would be discredited and Powell could then accept the mandate of the people to help them avert catastrophe. One of Powell's aides reportedly dubbed his home in Meridale Road "Wolverhamptonles-deux-Eglises." See Roth, pp. 3-4. 77 David Butler has argued that as many as eight seats in "Powell territory" went to Labour that would not had he remained silent. The median swing to Labour was much higher in districts where Powell's

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The press greeted these new initiatives as political suicide, but whether it was is not unambiguous. Powell subsequently reentered Parliament in the October 1974 general election as an Ulster Unionist representing Northern Ireland. How­ ever, when Heath was replaced as leader, Powell was not a candidate, of course, and whether he can ever be one is highly doubtful. Still, in the economic circumstances in which Britain lives in the mid-seventies, a "man of the hour" strategy must surely find its most promising soil in years. The Economist, musing on Powell's prospects in 1972, suggested that "if a calamity (say 10 per cent inflation for a year or two more) were to end public confidence in the present political parties his potential following might be very large indeed."" Besides illustrating how quickly one's notions of what consti­ tutes a calamity may change, this suggests that Enoch Powell may still play a central role in what could be the ultimate test to the stability of British political institutions. Race, Politics, and the People—Toward an Assessment In this discussion of Enoch Powell I have tried to set his immigration-related behavior in the context of his more general political views, his political ambitions, and the deeper currents in British mass opinion which he in some way un­ deniably represents. This approach is intended to rescue Powell from the attacks of those who attribute to him purely crude racist attitudes or wholly self-interested political mo­ tivations. Such analyses tend to caricature the man and inci­ dentally thereby serve as very poor guides to combating "Powellism." However, it is necessary and fair to ask to what end Powell intervened into the immigration debate; that is, what was the outcome of his unprecedented outbursts? The degree to which Powell helped clarify the issues at support was strong. For example, in Birmingham it was 3.7 per cent, in South Staffordshire 8.5 per cent, and in Powell's old seat in Wolver­ hampton, 16.7 per cent, though it was retained by a Tory. Sunday Times, 3 March 1974. 78 Economist, 8 July 1972.

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stake in the immigration controversy is debatable, though this was his ostensible purpose. He was very careless with his use of statistics and seemed purposely to interpret them in the worst conceivable light, always to bolster his own case. His lack of precedence in verifying the rumors and second­ hand tales of immigrant misbehavior constitutes a serious transgression of the responsibilities of anyone in a position of authority who is dealing with a very sensitive and highly emotive topic. Powell has been castigated for daring to ignore the British political norm that a politician does not stoop to quote his lowly constituents. This is a rule that fairly invites flaunting, but Powell's penetration of the "conspiracy of silence" on race seemed to be intended less to provide a forum for grass-roots opinion than to inflame, arouse, and ignite that opinion—and there is a difference here. His insistence that repatriation was a viable goal, and his concomitant proposition that any efforts to assist in the integration and adjustment of immigrants were not only futile but counterproductive, provided incentives for those who did not wish to face facts. Powell himself is a man who has often drawn the distinction between myth and reality and portrayed himself as one who could cut through the popular delusions of the day. His immigration proposals, however, created a false perception that the immigration which had already occurred could somehow be undone without doing clearly unacceptable violence to the basic norms of fair-play and decency which make up a part of British political culture. As a result Powell facilitated the squandering of those first im­ portant years when there was time, through a serious pro­ gram related to integration, welfare, and discrimination, to avoid the development of a major and chronic race problem in Britain. Powell's comments contributed to the erosion of what good will there was between the races and intensified the insecurity and anxieties of both the immigrant community and the native Britons. And while exacting such costs, Powell achieved few of the immigration policy goals he had sought. He did of course succeed in moving the immigration debate

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sharply to the right, and the 1968 and 1971 Immigration Acts may serve as monuments to his influence. But in terms of his stated purposes (to halt all further new immigration, including the families and dependents of those already settled in Britain, and to develop a large-scale program of repatri­ ation for those already there), he was less successful. The new immigration had already been considerably decreased after 1962 and Powell's rhetoric bore little relationship to the reality of a tightly run control system. He tacitly recognized this when he turned his attention to immigrant birth rates. The only solution to this problem, he felt, was repatriation. Although the 1971 Act provides for government aid for such purposes, it has never been an important program and few political leaders besides Powell ever believed it could be. Powell's attempts to fashion a new sense of national pur­ pose for Britain in the postcolonial period are more difficult to evaluate. They constitute one of the more important alter­ natives to the efforts of the two parties to deal with the pre­ cipitous decline of faith and authority which accompanied the contemporary British crisis. Against Edward Heath's vision of a resurgent Britain in Europe and dissident Labour's promise of a socialist system independent of both Europe and the United States, Powell held forth the model of an intensely nationalist "White Britain" devoted to the pristine values of yesteryear. At least for the moment Powellism is on the decline. But there were times when it seemed as if the man had found the formula capable of moving thousands to rise up against the status quo. Two questions occur immediately. Why is it that, given the gravity of the situation in Britain, Powell's scenario ultimately failed? And, second, why was there no equivalent to Enoch Powell in France? The answer to the first question is not obvious. One is pulled immediately to the suggestion that the nearly unani­ mous voice with which the members of the British political elite denounced Powell effectively ensured that his success would be limited. From this perspective, Edward Heath plays

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the leading role, for it was he who went out on a limb to end Powell's ministerial career. This line of reasoning ignores a basic problem, however. It is at least possible that the ready response which Powell found among rank-and-file Britons was the result of elite refusal to deal openly and honestly with the immigration issue. This is, of course, a difficult matter and there will be those who will see the attempts to defuse race as the only viable and humane alternative. In the present context, the important point is that the depoliticization of race made it likely that those who felt the parties were not sufficiently interested in the color issue would be drawn to a demagogue's appeal outside the party apparatus. Powell failed, in the end, because in the British system there was simply no means by which he could translate his popularity into political power except through a party. The "moderate" leadership of the Tories prevailed in the not too intense struggle for control in Central Office, while adopting many of his positions, and Powell showed no interest in forming his own party. In fact, he demonstrated a Gaullist disdain for the day-to-day, unglamorous undertaking of political organizing. His was an apocalyptic leadership. The Market referendum was his long suit, and having lost there, he had nothing left to do. Why was immigration a more salient and disruptive issue in Britain than in France? The most obvious answer is that immigration was economically beneficial, even necessary, in France and was perceived to be so, while it was less clearly required in Britain and was perceived to be so. The detach­ ment with which the French have treated the presence of great numbers of foreigners may be seen, in this view, as a matter of direct self-interest and the resistance of the British a function of competition for the scarce resource of economic security. It is also possible that the French, as a people, are more tolerant of different nationalities than are the British. Al­ though the survey data presented in this chapter give some support to this argument, I do not find it convincing. For

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one, the immigration to France was not entirely, or even primarily, racially heterogeneous. Only a small proportion of the foreign labor force was black, a larger number being Moslem. The French are admirably tolerant of other south­ ern Europeans but quite opposed to the presence of North Africans, to whom they attribute unattractive characteristics and toward whom they hold very negative feelings. Had the immigration to France been primarily North African from the start, the history of postwar policy might read very differ­ ently and might be not unlike that of the British case. A more useful explanation would concentrate on the greater strength of class-conscious parties and unions in the working class of France than of Britain. The PCF and CGT, whatever their failures on the immigration issue, were able to prevent great numbers of their rank and file from being swept up by right-wing movements. The hard evidence upon which a confident argument on this point would be based has clearly not been presented in this report and has probably not been collected. Nevertheless, the failure of the left in Britain to provide a viable alternative to the government policy, as the French Marxists did, left the field open for Powell. When one moves from the direct, proximate factors which may account for the variation.in the politics of race in these two countries to more general causes, there is even less em­ pirical foundation for speculation. The reading of the French and British experience which has been offered here, however, suggests the possibility that one of the most significant factors which may account for the different way in which the immi­ gration issue has been perceived by the mass public, and exploited by political entrepreneurs, is the degree to which immigration evokes deeper, more fundamental strains in the political system. It has been the thesis of this chapter that this is precisely what has happened in Britain, where Com­ monwealth immigration has been just one aspect of a larger crisis and one means by which that crisis may be met. The ability of a people to undergo a large influx of racially or culturally heterogeneous individuals without trauma will de-

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pend on a number of factors, some of which have just been suggested, but one requirement may be that the political and social community itself be basically "fit." The French, accord­ ing to this line of reasoning, were relatively unconcerned that nearly four million foreigners were living within their borders because the French state and the French culture were essen­ tially secure, and unlikely to be overwhelmed or fundamen­ tally altered by the newcomers. The British, on the other hand, faced the arrival of Commonwealth immigrants in a period of great stress, when the role of the nation, its place in world politics, its identity vis-a-vis its former Empire were up in the air. France shared many of these problems as well, but they were not exacerbated by a marked economic decline and a basic loss of confidence. It was to these anxieties that Enoch Powell and those like him spoke, and the remarkable response they received is testimony to the pervasiveness of the malaise they had uncovered.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion

THE immigration-race "problem" has perplexed the leaders

of both France and Britain. It has not been as vital a ques­ tion as economic growth, class relations, or Ulster for the British nor as grave as the upheaval in Algeria in 1958, and the Days of May for the French, but it has nevertheless been troublesome, relatively unamenable to solution, potentially very serious, and always festering under the surface of the political routine. I have tried to approach this story from the point of view of the individuals who have made it. This has been done because of my conviction that the perspectives of political decision makers offer a unique and important key to the understanding of public events and processes. Nevertheless, it is fair to ask if there are not patterns which can be drawn from these cases. The explanation of these patterns and the specification of what they reveal about the French and British political systems are the tasks of this chapter.

IMMIGRATION AND RACE—A REPRISE

Whatever the differences in the contexts and nuances of French and British policy, the most striking aspect of this comparison is the convergence of policy in the seventies. Starting from the position of principally free immigration or a laissez-faire system of limited controls, both governments had by 1975 instituted tightly regulated, racially discrimina­ tory, temporary contract-labor systems. In both cases this involved making distinctions about the desirability of par­ ticular nationality and racial groups as immigrants. Both entailed the removal of citizenship rights from certain na-

CONCLUSION

tionalities to which they had been granted earlier, either as an attempt to resist decolonization or to cushion its impact, or as a manifestation of the European's overweening confi­ dence and cultural chauvinism. Despite this basic similarity, there are three very clear distinctions between the two cases. The first relates to the propensity to use immigration for economic purposes. On the surface, French and British policy was now organized to facilitate coordination with a precise and systematic man­ power program. However, as I have argued at length, only the French have even the rudiments of such a policy. The manpower aspects of British immigration decisions must be interpreted as wishful thinking at best and a ruse to cover up racial discrimination at worst. The failure of the British to understand that immigration could contribute to the resolu­ tion of their economic woes, or at the very least, their in­ ability to regulate immigration in those terms has been one of the central themes of this study. Aside from the perspectives which governments applied to the question of immigration control, it was in dealing with racial and ethnic minorities already arrived that the two systems most clearly adopted distinctive paths. This second difference has been analyzed in chapter 5. The British moved toward an elaborate race relations structure involving, if not large sums of money, the time and energies of thousands of persons throughout the United Kingdom. The French, on the other hand, chose to rely on criminal law and the eco­ nomic self-interest of the French worker to prevent out­ breaks of racial violence. Having begun with a grander com­ mitment to assimilation than the British, the French were quicker to admit the impossibility of absorbing large ele­ ments of non-Europeans and simply gave up. Finally, anyone who has followed French and British politics over the last two decades will be aware that the latter have been much more affected by fears over immigra­ tion and racial conflict than the former. Regardless of the fact that French nativism apparently led to a number of

CONCLUSION

murders of immigrants in 1973, that the French clearly harbor anti-immigrant sentiments, especially with respect to North Africans, and that there is a growing willingness on the part of government officials to talk about the subject, immigration has been much more salient as a political issue in Great Britain. Given the basic similarity in policy development, the fore­ going three distinctions could easily be overlooked by com­ parative analysts. Scholars engaged in broad aggregate analysis, for example, might well put both the French and British cases together as countries which had responded to immigration in similar ways. They might argue that I have chosen my cases badly because the absence of variation in the dependent policy variable vitiates the comparison. This is true, however, only if one takes an overly simplistic ap­ proach to defining policy, and especially if one ignores the reasons which underlay the adoption of a particular course rather than another. The research on which this study is built was not designed to test specific hypotheses or the utility of precisely operationalized concepts. The primary thrust of the research is not explanatory at all, if by that is understood the self-con­ scious manipulation of variables in a measurable fashion under statistically generated control situations. What I offer is a much less ambitious endeavor, but one that is necessary at this stage—a serious description of events in the two countries especially sensitive to the way in which those events were understood by the participants. This kind of analysis does not provide definitive explanations of behavior, but it does identify the patterns which need explanation and which otherwise might be ignored. It also serves to generate plausible hypotheses to explain these patterns. SOME EXPLANATIONS OF POLICY

Having spent the bulk of this study identifying and clarify­ ing the sequences of events, I would now like to suggest the

CONCLUSION

directions in which one must go in order to explain the phe­ nomena I have described. Two explanatory approaches to the cases appear profitable. A first set of explanations empha­ sizes external constraints on policy, such as economic condi­ tions. In a sense these factors may be seen as taking deci­ sions out of the hands of policy makers or giving a definitive cast to the alternatives that they can consider. The sec­ ond set of explanations is made up of proximate determi­ nants which explain variance not accounted for by macroexplanations. These include such factors as party system, political styles, and the belief systems of decision makers. In looking at external constraints, it is important to be sensi­ tive to the fact that, while decision makers may act within a clear environmental context, the environment intercedes into politics through the agency of individuals who take a particular point of view. In this they may be reading the handwriting on the wall, but they are reading nonetheless. The primary factors which can be seen as external de­ terminants of policy are economics, demography, and co­ lonialism. There are at least two versions of an essentially economic explanation for what happened in Britain and France on the immigration front. The first theory holds that migration has become an essential component of advanced capitalist systems and both its appearance and the way in which it has been managed reflect this development.1 The second, less sweeping, interpretation simply assumes that economic effects are normally overriding in the minds of decision makers and that cutbacks in migration, as well as changes in the details of regulation, were geared to achiev­ ing one or more of the economic goals of the regime. Both of these perspectives seem roughly consistent with the evidence, though much less so in the British case. It is evident that migrant labor is a universal feature of con­ temporary capitalism, as unavoidable as it is troublesome. 1 See Manuel Castells, "Immigrant Workers and Class Struggles in Advanced Capitalism, p. 53; Andre Gorz, "Immigrant Labour"; Bernard Granotier, Les travailleurs immigris en France.

CONCLUSION

Furthermore, given the priority that decision makers gen­ erally place on economics, it would be surprising if the warp and woof of policy were not related to such considerations. Nevertheless, simply falling back on either an economicdeterminist or an economically oriented explanation is in­ sufficient to make sense of the events described in these chapters. That this is so in the British case should need no further substantiation. French policy, however, was so ob­ viously geared to the imperatives of the economy that it may appear to confirm these hypotheses. The French seemed keenly aware of the economic dynamics of migration and the reforms they enacted after 1968 constitute one of the best examples of how the "imperatives" of a system actually make themselves felt in a specific instance. There are, however, important elements in the French response that would be poorly accounted for by such an approach. The apparent preference which French policy makers display for European and other white immigrants does not perfectly reflect their value as workers. North Afri­ cans may possess language, cultural, and skill characteristics which make them less adaptable to industrial routines, but they are also cheap and hard working. The racially selective policy which Paris adopted is a politically motivated policy which may entail economic hardship for the country. In sum, economics is the place to begin for an understanding of contemporary immigration, but cannot alone provide a satisfactory explanation. In addition to economic factors several situational varia­ bles created opportunities and set boundaries for policy makers. The most important of these were demographic trends and the legacy of colonialism. The two aspects of the demographic context which have been important for this study are birth and immigration rates. The essential ef­ fects of these factors appear to be the following: 1. An intense concern about the potential deleterious social, political, and economic consequences of insufficient population made French decision makers, especially those

CONCLUSION

around Charles de Gaulle in the immediate aftermath of the war, view immigration in positive terms. British officials, on the other hand, despite the fact that net immigration was very low through much of the postwar period,2 persisted in thinking of the country as overcrowded and overburdened with demands on the flagging social services. Demography was discussed in political terms almost solely as a problem of "braindrain" and immigration was not thought to be a sufficient remedy. 2. The migration to Britain, especially from the subconti­ nent, appeared to many Britons as an unregulated and un­ controllable movement which had no upper limit. In spite of a number of careful studies which demonstrated that migra­ tions almost always were self-regulated, dark visions of the hungry and restless millions relentlessly queuing up to come to the mother country alarmed large numbers of people. It is probably true that the potential sources of newcomers to Britain were more ample than those from which France drew. Furthermore, the open-ended nature of British com­ mitments to her Commonwealth "citizens" intensified this problem. France, after all, signed agreements with sending countries which set strict limits on numbers, though usually the government saw them as hopeful targets rather than the measure of France's capacity. Finally, the governments of the countries providing workers for France were more will­ ing to cooperate in controlling migration and, in fact, would have probably resisted massive movements of young laborers. 3. It is a little misleading to refer to the colonial legacy as a cause of recent policy. Colonialism, one should remem­ ber, was a policy in its own right. Nevertheless, decisions made in the past weigh heavily on later calculations as much 2 According to one authority, "In 1964 a net outward migration balance of 60,000 replaced the inward balance of the peak immigra­ tion period 1958-1963. There has been an outward balance each year since 1964. It was approximately 44,000 from mid-1971 to mid-1972." John Simons, "Great Britain," p. 618.

CONCLUSION

recent research has shown.3 The impact of colonialism was sketched in chapters 2 and 3. Here I should reiterate that my own focus has been on the way in which colonial experiences and ideologies shaped immigration decisions primarily, but not exclusively, by making these decisions more liberal than they would have been otherwise. Current theories of neo­ colonialism make much broader and different (though not necessarily inconsistent) claims, and they were discussed in chapter 7. All three of these developments made it almost inevitable that any sizable immigration to Britain would create severe anxieties and misgivings. A perception of limited space and resources, coupled with a growing stream of newcomers from a seemingly inexhaustible source, aided and abetted by a citizenship law which made it impossible to reduce or halt the flow—this was a recipe for political conflict. If the immigration issue was markedly affected by his­ torical residues, economic pressures, and demographic trends, each of these sets of constraints were understood and translated into political terms. Although it is impossible to estimate accurately the impact of one set of factors relative to another, it is probably correct to argue that those varia­ bles which one normally thinks of as political—party system, governmental structure, political culture—were less central in determining the course of policy than were those factors already discussed. Nevertheless, they had a discernible effect on policy outcomes and in many ways they appear to ac­ count for some of the most interesting variations between the two cases. There seem to be three major conclusions about the impact of political variables which can be drawn from the evidence. The political debate between the parties in France and Britain were almost mirror images of one another. In France, conservative parties dominated government after 3 See the discussion of the weight of the "policy inheritance" in Hugh Heclo, Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden, pp. 4664.

CONCLUSION

1958 and took the lead in fostering and defending immigra­ tion as a part of more general economic measures. As has been shown, it was not until after 1968 that the Gaullists and then the Giscardiens began seriously to attempt to "mas­ ter" immigration which had till then been tolerantly allowed to occur spontaneously and without government interference. It was left to the socialists and communists, and especially the trade unions, to call for controls and regulation. That they did so in part out of fear of adverse effects on indige­ nous workers one cannot doubt, but their stance also re­ flected, as I have argued, a relatively mature and sophisti­ cated Marxist analysis of migrant labor's position in French capitalism. The reformist position in France, then, was both pro-immigrant and pro-control. The situation across the channel was very different. La­ bour, caught in a trap only partly of its own design, trans­ formed open entry from the Commonwealth into high moral principle in 1962, only to back away three years later in de­ feat and humiliation. Once the necessity of controls had been conceded, however, no proper and rational basis for choosing one system over another was ever uncovered. The reformist program in Britain was to remove or ease con­ trols, or granting the impossibility of that, to work for an aggressive race relations policy. The Conservative Party be­ haved as if the economic health of the country were the furthest thing from its mind. Heedless of the desperate pleas of the Economist, the Tories vented the fears and prejudices of the constituency associations in a series of measures, each more exacting and discriminatory than its predecessor. Giv­ en this configuration, there were no significant spokesmen for a strictly economic analysis of immigration—from the left or the right. The character of the party political debate in the two countries no doubt reflects, in some measure, the different economic, demographic, and historical circumstances which adhered in each case. But more immediate explanations for this strange turn of events can be found in the political

CONCLUSION

structures of the two systems. Especially, in this regard, the absence of an important Marxist-oriented party in Britain helps explain the failure of the left to approach immigration in terms of class. To fully comprehend the seemingly aber­ rant behavior of the Tories, however, one must look at two other essentially political factors—grass-roots opposition to nonwhite immigration and the structure of the governing apparatus within which elites operated. The evidence amassed in chapter 8 shows conclusively that there was both more spontaneous mass resentment of immigrants in Britain than in France and more important public figures willing to take advantage of it. I tried in that discussion to account for this—the failure of socialist par­ ties and unions to hold the working class in line, the failure of the government to point out persuasively the economic stakes of Britons in continued migration, the sense of na­ tional decline and crisis which fed mass anxieties. The puzzling question is, of course, the extent to which the pas­ sions of the public were a basic constraint on the behavior of both Labour and Conservative Governments. For example, did the 1968 Act removing entry rights from Asians in East Africa constitute brazen pandering to the nativists or was it a calculated response to a potential domestic crisis? What­ ever the failures of British politicians to exert moral leader­ ship on the race question, with the exception of individuals here and there the leadership of the two parties did honestly try to cope with what they perceived as a groundswell of antiblack prejudice. This response may not have been prescient or successful, but it grew out of real fears of the ugly mood of the British people. The willingness of the pub­ lic to tolerate sizable non-European immigration, then, can be seen as a basic cause of policy differences in the two countries. Governmental structures and administrative processes made themselves felt on immigration policy in these ways: the French planning apparatus and administrative style heightened the emphasis on economic aspects of the phe-

CONCLUSION

nomenon, reduced participation by the public in policy dis­ cussion, and bought the government time during which it extracted enormous profit from migrants; the British prac­ tice of making immigration policy in the open, through party debate and competition, and the emphasis which British politicians place on conflict management, bargaining, and negotiation meant that the potential for conflict between the races (and the parties) would be more salient to them than the projections of economists about immigrant contributions to productivity. The French and British experiences with migration may well illustrate the ability of two very dif­ ferent kinds of political systems to handle separate kinds of challenges—the effective direction of an economy, on the one hand; and the amelioration of social conflict, on the other. In order to delve into a discussion of this issue more fully, I want to address more directly the manner in which elite belief systems or perspectives complement, interact with, or supplant the explanations for policy which have just been presented. IDEAS AND POLICY— ELITE PERCEPTIONS AND SOCIAL LEARNING

The intellectual equipment with which government offi­ cials approach their tasks is of interest to the policy analyst for a number of reasons. Having concluded to his own satis­ faction that a policy was caused by a particular set of factors, the researcher may well wish to turn to the creators of that policy to find out if the reasons which they can or will ar­ ticulate for their behavior fit the analyst's model. If the de­ cision makers' reasons coincide with those the researcher has settled upon, he may feel more confident that he is close to the truth. If they do not, the model may be valid none­ theless—politicians are probably no more open or selfaware than anyone else and they may either be unaware of the pressures which compel them to make certain choices or they may wish, for whatever reason, to conceal their mo-

CONCLUSION

tives. In either case, the perceptual systems of decision mak­ ers filter and interpret the events in their environment which impinge on their behavior. Their perspectives become medi­ ating variables and, as such, are a necessary component of a satisfactory explanatory theory.4 Moreover, the perceptual systems of policy makers may be especially pertinent when one is trying to account for a pattern of apparently aberrant behavior, decisions which seem to the outside observer to be irrational and counter to the demands of the situation; or where one wishes to explicate the process of policy innova­ tion and change, those moments when new conditions and circumstances in the real world make themselves felt by decision makers. A final reason that policy studies should focus on the na­ ture of elite beliefs and values is that in the absence of such data it is difficult adequately to account for some of the most interesting aspects of public policies. Once the grand tendencies of policy have been described, there is a wide range of variation in the content of policy that usually rep­ resents the proclivities, style, and habits of particular sets of decision makers. These subtleties appear to vary systemati­ cally from polity to polity to such an extent that it is not absurd to speak of a French or a British decision-making style. One may think of these problem-solving propensities as analogous to alternative solutions to a mathematical problem. The answer is the same, but the routes taken to it may be divergent. To the extent that government involves the efforts of men and women to tinker with reality in order to make it take a preferred course, these peculiarities are crucial. When one considers the speed or efficiency of a de­ cision, its impact on other policies, or its costs in both so­ cial and financial terms, the route taken to a solution may be as important as the solution itself. The degree to which elite belief systems can adapt to a 4 For an interesting discussion of this by a student of international affairs, see J. David Singer, "Level of Analysis Problem in Interna­ tional Relations," pp. 20-29.

CONCLUSION

world in flux should, it seems, be a central concern of policy analysis. This is what Donald Shon has called social learn­ ing. It is the process by which social systems overcome their own tendencies toward "dynamic conservatism" and "learn to identify, analyze and solve [their] problems."5 The heart of social learning, according to Shon, is the development of public problems, issues, and solutions (what he calls "ideas in good currency") which are adequate to the situation ac­ tually confronting the society.® One may approach the pub­ lic debate in France and Britain, then, in order to (1) com­ prehend more exactly why policy took the form it did—to explain aberrant and innovative behavior, to validate one's own explanatory models, or to uncover distinctive problemsolving modes—and (2) to evaluate the adequacy of public learning with respect to the issue under consideration. Surely the most dramatic example of behavior contrary to what one would expect is the British reluctance to treat immigration as a serious component of manpower policy. This subject has already been discussed exhaustively. All that remains is to ask how far this situation can be seen as a consequence of British decision makers' outlooks and per­ spectives on their roles. As I have already suggested, it seems that British politicians tend to conceive of their func­ tion as one of mediating conflict and resolving social ten­ sion. Furthermore, some Conservative leaders, at least, were wedded to a vision of British national character and great­ ness which they saw the dark hordes undermining in a basic way. Labourites, for their part, were greatly impressed by the American race dilemma and were determined that the British record on civil rights would be superior. The human­ itarian perspective which they developed simply did not at­ tend to the economic consequences of migration in a funda­ mental way. The impact of distinctive problem-solving modes is evi­ dent on a number of fronts. Chapter 5 tried to describe these 5 Beyond the Stable State, p. 117. β Ibid., p. 123.

CONCLUSION

in systematic fashion. In managing immigration, the French chose to rely on a central recruitment and screening agency (ONI) and a series of bilateral agreements negotiated with countries of labor surplus. The British placed immigration control in the hands of the Home Office and only half­ heartedly explored the possibilities of bilateralism. The French approach to welfare for immigrants involved creat­ ing specialized programs and agencies directed to the par­ ticular needs of migrants and sometimes to particular na­ tionality groups. The British, fearing that such a strategy would violate the norm of universalism which characterizes their social services, insisted that immigrants could be cared for adequately through the existing programs. In con­ trast to the British case, the French demonstrated little or no concern about reverse discrimination. It is proper in France for the government to intervene on behalf of particu­ lar classes of individuals or institutions with special incen­ tives or programs. This is the manner in which French in­ dicative planning operates. The state is not seen as an impartial arbiter between groups and individuals. On the contrary, it embodies the common interest through its actions. In Britain, on the other hand, the general welfare is thought to emerge out of the competition of group interests. The remarkable way in which the French and British ap­ proach to eliminating racial prejudice and discrimination diverged has been discussed in chapter 5 where the com­ munity relations strategy of the latter was contrasted to the deterministic pessimism of the former. These differences must be understood as, in part, a reflection of diverse values and assumptions about social relations and social change. The British experience with race relations may demon­ strate the utility of a learning perspective for understanding the development of policy. It is possible, of course, to see the struggle for the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968 in a pure pressure group politics framework. In this view a reluctant government is led through pressure by liberals, militant blacks, and public opinion to enact legislation to

CONCLUSION

protect the minority's rights. This is not necessarily an in­ valid interpretation. But it is also possible and useful to see the step-by-step movement toward the Race Relations Acts as the result of doubts being assuaged, ignorance being in­ formed, opposing arguments being overcome, and experience being assessed. Formal research studies (of the kind pro­ duced by Political and Economic Planning, for example) played an important role. A need for policy had to be estab­ lished; a persuasive argument had to be mounted that law was the most appropriate means for dealing with the prob­ lem; finally, the government had to be convinced that the adoption of such a strategy would not violate in any serious fashion the basic values and norms of the political system. The proponents of anti-discrimination legislation in Britain were compelled to demonstrate, for example, that it would not create a "privileged class of people." This learning process is still going on.7 The transformation of French immigration policy may also be usefully conceived as, in part, a response to a chang­ ing intellectual analysis. Undeniably, the decision to close off permanent immigration to North Africans and other non-Europeans was a response to political pressures at home and to emerging economic difficulties in the early seventies. But it was also a reaction to growing indications that immigrant labor was not as efficient and profitable as it had been. The recognition that migration might be pur­ chasing growth on the cheap and extending the French in­ dustrial apparatus beyond its natural limits was slow in coming, and it was made more urgent by the onset of un­ employment and inflation, but it would have come about in any case. Furthermore, the acceptance of the idea that above a minimum proportion racial minorities inevitably give rise to social strains seems to me more useful in explaining 7 The Race Relations Act, 1976 attempted to resolve many of the shortcomings of its predecessors and, again, reorganized the official bodies responsible for its administration. See the Economist, 18 June 1977.

CONCLUSION French policy than the fact that the minority community actually grew to nearly 7 per cent of the population. The acceptance of the notion of a threshold of tolerance and the subsequent policy decisions based on it served as a selfdenying prophecy to the extent that they headed off racial conflict before it could develop. To argue that the threads of policy decision approximate a learning process is not to suggest that policy is getting bet­ ter, or that it was good in the first place. The learning per­ spective implies no more than that decision makers take into account the evidence of experience and try to adjust pro­ grams accordingly and that they pay attention to argument, data, and values. Policy is not simply a matter of power politics. It is in some limited sense rational. To appreciate this, one must seriously examine the terms in which policy is debated. However, it is also necessary to disentangle one­ self from the preoccupations of policy makers and ask whether policy is not only cumulative and logical, but whether it is desirable. This is the final task of this book and it may be undertaken in the context of a brief survey of the major alternatives open to policy makers in the next few years. A LOOK TO THE FUTURE The evolution of immigration and race relations in France and Britain is only partly in the hands of government elites. Public opinion may place more or less severe constraints on their flexibility and, in addition, the ability of working-class institutions to respond effectively to the migrant worker challenge could greatly alter political equations. For a gov­ ernment to be an effective learning system it is necessary not only for dominant elites to demonstrate the capacity to respond to crisis, but for counterelites (unions and dissident political movements) to offer creative and serious alterna­ tives and, if necessary, to restructure governing coalitions. It would be short-sighted to evaluate policy only from the

CONCLUSION

point of view of the needs and desires of successive govern­ ments. Unless one is prepared to assume that Western gov­ ernments usually try to operate in the interest of the public as a whole, one must always clarify for whom a particular choice is satisfactory. There are two general scenarios that one may at least plausibly envision as describing the future of either French or British immigration policy. The first may be labeled the Swiss model and it entails the end of immigration; the second may be called the German model and it involves a tem­ porary contract-labor system. Switzerland is the European country with the highest pro­ portion of immigrants. By the 1970s they constituted 16 per cent of the total population and nearly 30 per cent of the labor force, the largest number coming from Italy.8 The fears of industrial expansion outstripping the capacity of the national labor force which French businessmen are just beginning to experience have haunted the Swiss for some years. The anxieties which many British people exhibit that something essential in British life is being irrevocably al­ tered by the alien influx have long been a major concern of the Swiss. In fact, iiberfremdung (foreign penetration and dominance) has been the most serious domestic issue in Switzerland in the 1960s and early 1970s. There have been two unsuccessful national referenda campaigns launched not only to halt further immigration but to reduce the size of the foreign population markedly. The Swiss government has di­ rected employers to reduce the number of foreigners work­ ing in their plants, much in the way that French officials have instituted added financial burdens on industrialists who employ foreigners. It would be wrong to suggest that Switzer­ land has halted immigration (it could hardly do so without bringing on economic ruin), nor has it done more than toy 8

See Stephen Castles and Godula Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe, pp. 36-39. The most thorough study of Swiss immigration is H. M. Hagmann, Les travailleurs etrangers.

CONCLUSION

with the idea of sending the foreigners home. What the gov­ ernment has done is decide to stabilize and gradually reduce the immigrant population and the prime motivation appears to be not the inflationary pressures which massive immigra­ tion has generated but the political mandate the government has received to preserve Swiss national identity. It is apparent that neither France nor Britain fits the Swiss model perfectly, but there are some intriguing simi­ larities. Perhaps the most compelling is that between the nativist reaction in Switzerland and Powellism in the United Kingdom. The repatriation movement in Switzerland has twice failed to win referenda on the presence of foreigners, but this is in a country where foreign labor is absolutely es­ sential for prosperity, and where a decision to expel even a minority of the migrants would undeniably have severe con­ sequences for the Swiss economy. One of the central argu­ ments in this study has been that the British do not perceive any economic stake in immigration and, therefore, presum­ ably would not vote against repatriation on those grounds. Still, I think there is good reason to doubt that the British will rush in where the Swiss have feared to tread. For one thing, despite the precedent-shattering referendum on the Common Market in 1975, the British people are very un­ likely to get a chance to express themselves directly on the immigration question. If repatriation becomes policy, it will be as a result of a decision of one of the parties, and this does not seem probable. The sting of Powellism appears to have been drawn by the 1971 Immigration Act which ended, for all practical purposes, the permanent residence rights of Commonwealth immigrants. With the door firmly shut to new nonwhite immigration, and with the immigrant com­ munity stabilized at numbers far below those of the Swiss case, the impetus for a strong, nativist movement focused on immigration policy seems to have been blunted. In many ways the Swiss model is more relevant to events in France. As chapter 6 demonstrated, French planners and businessmen are developing at least the central threads of

CONCLUSION

the analysis I have just described as constituting the Swiss model. There is evident readiness to make at least some sac­ rifices in order to reduce French dependence on foreign workers. Fear of disturbing French national character through heavy immigration is only latent in France, but it is there—the stubborn insistence on assimilation grows out of a nationalistic assumption of the superiority of French cul­ ture and the decision to discourage permanent settlement by North Africans represents a conclusion that their assimila­ tion may be impossible. As long as the French worker is convinced that immigration is useful for his own well-being, as he clearly is at the moment, a serious arousal of nativist feeling seems highly unlikely. This is all the more so if French policy remains or becomes more "selective," since French attitudes toward Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish workers are very favorable. It is only Arabs and black Afri­ cans who are capable of exciting resistance in France. The second basic case from which French and British decision makers may learn is that of a temporary, contractlabor system which one may call the German model. In this scenario immigration is not halted, but permanent immigra­ tion becomes very difficult. Instead, workers are recruited under contract for specific periods, particular jobs, and un­ der very controlled circumstances. There is no attempt to integrate or assimilate the foreigners—they are discouraged from bringing their families with them and are housed in segregated, dormitory-style accommodations built by the government or furnished by the employer. There is relatively little contact with the host society and a myriad of social problems are thereby avoided. This system is quite flexible and involves for the labor importer few risks, since in periods of recession the foreign work force can be greatly reduced by simply halting new recruitment and refusing to renew work permits as they expire. Germany is the country of Western Europe which has carried out the prototypical temporary labor migration pol­ icy. By 1966 there were 1.3 million foreign workers in the

CONCLUSION

Federal Republic, and after a sharp decline during the 1966-1967 recession, the number rose to over 2 million.9 The German system gives policy makers wide powers to adapt the labor supply to economic necessities. Furthermore, the tightly regulated system of control allows them to avoid the most glaring abuses of the French "spontaneous" immi­ gration. But there are some nagging doubts that the Ger­ man model can be a viable alternative. For one, it is becom­ ing more and more difficult to find abundant supplies of surplus labor that can be readily tapped at the rise or fall of the German economy. More and more, German recruiters have had to look to Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece, and even Morocco and Tunisia. Even on a temporary basis the use of non-European labor can permit a clash of cultures, and in the absence of readily available labor supplies, the tempo­ rary migration system loses much of its charm. Furthermore, despite all the precautions, a significant number of tempo­ rary workers remain permanently. They may have their con­ tracts renewed several times until they qualify for permanent residence, or they may marry citizens. In addition, the contract-labor system works only if it can attract sufficient workers and to do this in a highly competitive European labor market the rewards must be substantial. Moreover, the construction of special housing and other facilities is expensive, all of which reduces the profitability of immigra­ tion and increases the incentives to find some alternative. The reader will see that both France and Britain have taken steps to bring their own policies closer to the German model. The French, since 1969, have explicitly favored a temporary, contract-labor migration without the right of permanent settlement for non-Europeans. The efforts to extend the role of the National Immigration Office and halt clandestine entry and regularization are basic to this plan. For their part, the British through the 1971 Immigration Act set up a system that puts Commonwealth immigrants on the same footing with aliens (always subject to tempo9

Castles and Kosack, p. 40.

CONCLUSION

rary work permits). But as I have argued throughout this study, the British system is oriented toward a temporary manpower approach in form only, at least so far as Com­ monwealth immigrants are concerned. To the extent that both British and French officials have disavowed immigra­ tion for permanent settlement, and have taken powers to tightly restrict and control manpower in a temporary fashion, the German model seems to be the more relevant for their future immigration policies. To the extent, however, that both countries have concluded that there are definite limits to the numbers of foreigners they may admit into their com­ munities, they share basic similarities with the Swiss ex­ perience. It is difficult to know which of these futures is more de­ sirable. Both the Swiss and the German scenarios represent victories for dominant groups as long as they are adopted within the context of an essentially unchanged capitalist structure. The temporary labor system is the more forthrightly exploitative (even though it guarantees certain mini­ mal living standards). The Swiss-style renunciation of all immigration, although it represents a defeat for certain seg­ ments of capital at the hands of mass xenophobia, can only lead to heightened racial tension once it is enacted. One or the other of the models is very likely to be adopted unless representatives of labor intervene decisively to use the pres­ ence of foreigners to force reforms of French and British society. If they are to do this, they must resolve the dilemmas which were outlined in chapter 7, especially the very prob­ lematical relationship between ethnic and racial minorities and the national working class. There are two interesting counterscenarios that grow out of the analysis of the left. The first might be called the Revo­ lutionary Vanguard model. In this view, oppressed minori­ ties will not be integrated into the social systems of Europe, but will continue to suffer exploitation and discrimination until they become radicalized and mobilized and represent a revolutionary threat. There are a number of objections one

CONCLUSION

may raise about the desirability and the feasibility of this model. It is still too soon to do more than speculate because the political mobilization of European minorities is in its infancy. Yet if one may extrapolate from the record of American blacks, there appear to be formidable, possibly insurmountable, obstacles to the realization of such a strat­ egy, not the least of which is an explanation of how a small and relatively powerless group can ultimately avoid being crushed. More troubling, however, is the essentially cynical and passive nature of this view. Not only is the resolution of racial conflict not foreseen, such turmoil is the sine qua non for the transformation of the existing structure of power and authority. This perspective concedes the basic antipathy of minority-group members and the majority of the white society. The second counterscenario which may be drawn from the analysis of the left is the Reconciliation model. In its revolutionary socialist form, as elaborated by Andre Gorz, this model posits the basic community of interests between white and black workers and seeks to unite the two in a common struggle against capitalism and the bourgeois state. One need not accept Gorz's view that immigrants can be a potent revolutionary tool to recognize that the problem of racial conflict is basically a matter of the relations between black and white workers, and that any realistic solution must somehow find a common ground between the two groups. The institutional representatives of the working class, the trade unions and working-class-oriented parties, are in the most favorable position to work toward this goal. They may be the only institutions in Europe which are capable of ef­ fecting even an uneasy and fragile truce between the races. At least one factor in the relative success of the French in avoiding an outbreak of anti-immigrant feeling similar to Powellism seems to have been the relatively strong roots in the working class of unions and parties with essentially class analyses of immigration and the politics of race. The diffu­ sion of such theories among workers in Britain may be one

CONCLUSION

way to combat Powellism directly by providing an outlet and focus for those fears and anxieties which it taps. The record of the left in Britain has not been good. One reason for this has been that Labour has been the governing party throughout much of the postwar period and has tried to juggle the interests of immigrants, British workers, and the economy as a whole. Their lack of success at this sug­ gests that French socialists and communists may meet un­ expected setbacks should they participate in or actually con­ trol the government. It is one thing to resolve the tensions of migration and French capitalism in theory, but another to work out acceptable policies. In fact, as I have shown, socialist discussions of foreign labor often fail to agree on the proper policy stance. It may well turn out that no policy can succeed which takes as its point of reference the re­ quirements of French or British capitalism. The challenge of the French left would be, then, to implement those re­ forms in planning, the ownership of property, welfare, and French-Third World relations which alone make a policy of immigration control compatible with socialist principles and racial equality.

Works Cited

BOOKS Abbott, Simon, ed. The Prevention of Racial Discrimination in Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Albertini, Rudolf von. Decolonization: The Administration and Future of the Colonies, 1919-1960. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1971. Anand, V. S., and Ridley, F. A. The Enigma of Enoch Powell. London: Medusa Press, 1969. Anderson, Malcolm. Conservative Politics in France. Lon­ don: George Allen & Unwin, 1974. Axelrod, Robert, ed. The Structure of Decision: The Cogni­ tive Maps of Political Elites. Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1977. Barzun, Jacques. Race. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931. Beer, Samuel. British Politics in the Collectivist Age. New York: Vintage Books, 1969. Belloula, Tayeb. Les Algeriens fin France. Algiers: Editions Nationales Algeriennes, 1965. Benedict, Ruth. Race: Science and Politics.'New York: Vik­ ing Press, 1940. Berelson, Bernard et al. Voting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. Blalock, Hubert M. Toward a General Theory of MinorityGroup Relations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967. Blank, Stephen. Industry and Government in Britain. Lexing­ ton, Mass.: Saxon House/Lexington Books, 1973. Bohning, W. R. The Migration of Workers in the United Kingdom and the European Community. London: Ox­ ford University Press, 1972. Borella, Frangois. Les partis politiques dans la France d'aujourd'hui. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973.

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Boskoff, Alvin W. Theory in American Sociology. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969. Butler, D. E., and Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael. The British General Election of 1970. London: MacMillan, 1971. Calame, Paulette, and Calame, Pierre. Les travailleurs etrangers en France. Paris: Editions Economie et Humanisme, Les Editions Ouvrieres, 1972. Castles, Stephen, and Kosack, Godula. Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe. London: Ox­ ford University Press, 1973. Cohen, Stephen. Modern Capitalist Planning: The French Model. London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1969. Crozier, Michel; Huntington, Samuel; and Watanuki, Joji. The Crisis of Democracy. New York: New York Uni­ versity Press, 1975. Cullingworth, J. B. The Social Content of Planning. Lon­ don: George Allen & Unwin, 1973. Daniel, W. W. Racial Discrimination in Britain. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1968. Deakin, Nicholas, ed. Colour and the British Electorate 1964: Six Case Studies. London: Pall Mall Press, 1965. Duprat, Frangois. Les mouvements d'extreme-droite en France depuis 1944. Paris: Les Editions Albatross, 1972. Easton, Stewart C. The Twilight of European Colonialism: A Political Analysis. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960. Economic Issues in Immigration: An Exploration of the Liberal Approach to Public Policy on Immigration. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1970. Edelman, Murray. Politics as Symbolic Action. Chicago: Markham Publishers, 1971. Foot, Paul. Immigration and Race in British Politics. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1965. . The Rise of Enoch Powell. Harmondsworth, Eng­ land: Penguin Books, 1969.

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Gani, Leon. Syndicats et travailleurs immigres. Paris: Edi­ tions Sociales, 1972. Garrard, John A. The English and Immigration, 1880-1910. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Girardet, Raoul. L'idie coloniale en France. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1972. Granotier, Bernard. Les travailleurs immigris en France. Revised edition. Paris: Frangois Maspero, 1973. Guillaumin, Collette, L'ideologie raciste: Genese et langage actuel. Paris: Mouton, 1972. Habermas, Jurgen. Legitimation Crisis. Boston: Beacon Press, 1975. Hagmann, Herman-Michel. Les travailleurs etrangers: Chance et tourment de la Suisse. Lausanne: Payot, 1966. Hartmann, Paul, and Husband, Charles. Racism and the Media. London: David Poynter, 1974. Heclo, Hugh. Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974. Heineman, Benjamin W. The Politics of the Powerless: A Study of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. Hervo, Monique, and Charras, Marie-Ange. Bidonvilles. Paris: Frangois Maspero. 1971. Hill, Michael J., and Issacharoff, Ruth M. Community Ac­ tion and Race Relations: A Study of Community Re­ lations Committees in Britain. London: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1971. Holman, Robert, ed. Socially Deprived Families in Britain. London: Bedford Square Press, 1970. Humphry, Derek, and John, Gus. Because They're Black. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971. Humphry, Derek, and Ward, Michael. Passports and Politics. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1974. Jones, Aubrey. The New Inflation. Harmondsworth, Eng­ land: Penguin Books, 1973.

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Jones, K., and Smith, A. D. The Economic Impact of Com­ monwealth Immigration. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1970. Katznelson, Ira. Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States 1900-30 and Britain 1948-68. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Kindleberger, Charles P. Europe's Post-War Growth: The Role of Labor Supply. Cambridge: Harvard Univer­ sity Press, 1967. Lannes, Xavier. L'immigration en France depuis 1945. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953. Le logement des migrants. Paris: Droit et Liberte, 1972. Lester, Anthony, and Bindman, Geoffrey. Race and Law in Great Britain. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972. Lijphart, Arend. The Politics of Accommodation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man. New York: Doubleday, 1960. Luethy, Herbert. France Against Herself. Translated by Eric Mosbacher. New York: Meridian Books, 1957. MacRae, Duncan. Politics, Parties, and Society in France, 1946-1958. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967. Marcellin, Raymond. L'ordre public et Ies groupes revolutionnaires. Paris: Plon, 1969. Marshall, D. Bruce. The French Colonial Myth and Consti­ tution-Making in the Fourth Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973. Marshall, Τ. H. Citizenship and Social Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950. Marx, Karl. Capital. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co., 1909. Meadows, Donella, and Meadows, Dennis. The Limits to Growth. New York: New American Library, 1972. Mesarovic, Mihajlo, and Pestel, Edward. Mankind at the Turning Point: The Second Report to the Club of Rome. New York: New American Library, 1974.

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Meth, Monty. Brothers to All Men? London: Runnymede Trust Industrial Unit, 1972. Meynaud, Jean. Technocracy. Translated by Paul Barnes. London: Faber and Faber, 1968. Minces, Juliette. Les travailleurs etrangers en France. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973. Moore, Robert. Racism and Black Resistance in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1975. Mullard, Chris. On Being Black in Britain. Washington, D.C.: Inscape Publishers, 1975. O'Connor, James. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973. Organski, Katherine, and Organski, A.F.K. Population and World Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961. Patterson, Sheilah. Immigration and Race Relations in Brit­ ain: 1960-1967. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Peach, Ceri. West Indian Migration to Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Pinot, Frangoise. Travailleurs immigres dans la lutte de classes. Paris: Les Editions du CERF, 1973. Powell, J. Enoch. Freedom and Reality. London: Batsford, 1969. . The Common Market: The Case Against. Kingswood, Surrey, England: Paperfronts, Elliot Right Way Books, 1971. . Still to Decide. Kingswood, Surrey, England: Paperfronts, Elliot Right Way Books, 1972. . The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out. Kingswood, Surrey, England: Paperfronts, Elliot Right Way Books, 1973. Rose, Arnold. Migrants in Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969. Rose, E.J.B. et al. Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations. London: Oxford University Press, 1969.

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Roth, Andrew. Enoch Powell: Tory Tribune. London: Macdonald, 1970. Scobie, Edward. Black Britannia. Chicago: Johnson Publish­ ing Co., 1962. Shon, Donald. Beyond the Stable State. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1971. Shonfield, Andrew. Modern Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. Smithies, Bill, and Fiddick, Peter. Enoch Powell on Immi­ gration. London: Sphere Books, Ltd., 1969. Snyder, Louis L. The Idea of Racialism. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1962. Stacey, Tom. Immigration and Enoch Powell. London: Tom Stacey, 1970. Steel, David. No Entry: The Background and Implications of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1968. London: C. Hurst and Company, 1969. Stewart, Michael. Keynes and After. Harmondsworth, Eng­ land: Penguin Books, 1967. Suleiman, Ezra N. Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite. Princeton: Prince­ ton University Press, 1975. Tannahill, J. A. European Voluntary Workers in Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958. Thornton, A. P. The Imperialist Idea and Its Enemies. Lon­ don: MacMillan, 1966. Utley, Τ. E. Enoch Powell: The Man and His Thinking. London: William Kimber, 1968. Vickers, Sir Geoffrey. The Art of Judgment. New York: Basic Books, 1965. . Freedom in a Rocking Boat. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1970. Vieuguet, Andre. Frangais et immigres: Le combat du PCF. Paris: Editions Sociales, 1975. Wallerstein, Immanuel. Africa: The Politics of Independence. New York: Vintage Books, 1961.

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Calvez, Corentin. "Le probleme des travailleurs etrangers." Journal Officiel de la Republique Frangaise. Avis et Rapports du Conseil Economique et Social no. 7 (27 March 1969). Conservative Party Conference. Brighton, 4th Session, 1965. Mimeographed. France. "L'accord de !'immigration Franco-Italien." Con­ ference de presse de M. Ambroise Croizat, Ministre du Travail et de la Securite Sociale, 29 March 1947. Notes Documentaires et Etudes no. 584. Paris: La Documen­ tation Francaise. . "Un accord des partis Communistes Frangais et Italien sur !'emigration Italienne en France." Chronique Etrangere no. 3 Paris: La Documentation Frangaise, March 1966. . "L'action sociale en faveur des travailleurs Musulmans Algeriens en metropole et de Ieur famille: Le Fonds d'Action Sociale." Notes et Etudes Documentaires no. 2765. Paris: La Documentation Francaise, 30 March 1961. . "Les avantages demographiques et economiques de !'immigration." Notes Documentaires et Etudes no. 940. Paris: La Documentation Francaise. . "L'immigration dans Ie Troisieme Plan: Rapport General de la Commission de la Main-d'oeuvre." Pro blemes Economiques no. 566 (4 November 1958). Paris: La Documentation Frangaise. . Commissariat General du Plan de Modernisation et d'Equipement. Premier Rapport de la Commission

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de la Main-d'oeuvre. Paris: La Documentation Frangaise, October 1964. . Commissariat General du Plan d'Equipement et de la Productivite. Rapport General de la Commission de la Main-d'oeuvre, Ve Plan 1966-1970. 1966. . Commissariat General du Plan. Rapport de la Commission de I'Emploi, I, II. Paris: La Documenta­ tion Frangaise, 1971. . "Avis adopte par Ie Conseil Economique et Social au cours de sa seance du 26 Fevrier 1969." Journal Officiel. Avis et Rapports du Conseil Economique et Social no. 7 (7 May 1969). . Journal Officiel. Assemble nationale. Dibats. . Ministere du Travail, de L'Emploi, et de la Popu­ lation. "Le Fonds d'Action Sociale pour Ies travailleurs migrants: Six ans au service des etrangers et des mi­ grants." Paris: circa 1968. . "Les problemes frangais: Demographie et !'immi­ gration." Conference de presse de M. Robert Pringe, Ministre de la Population, 30 October 1946. Notes Documentaires et Etudes no. 456. Paris: La Documen­ tation Frangaise. Great Britain. Department of Education and Science. "The Education of Immigrants." Education Survey 13. Lon­ don: H.M.S.O., 1971. . Home Office. "Notes for the Home Secretary's Speech to the Conference on Community Relations on Wednesday, 18 March, 1970." Home Office Press No­ tice. Mimeographed, n.d. . House of Commons. Debates. . House of Commons. Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, Session 1970-1971, Hous­ ing, II, Evidence. London: H.M.S.O., 1971. . House of Commons. Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, Session 1970-1971, Control of Commonwealth Immigration, I, Evidence. London: H.M.S.O., 1971. . House of Commons. Select Committee on Race Re-

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WORKS CITED PAMPHLETS Bellamy, Joan. Unite Against Racialism: Defeat the Immi­ gration Bill. Communist Party pamphlet. London: 1971. Communist Party of Great Britain. 1974 Election Manifesto. Mimeographed. Conservative Party. A Better Tomorrow. Election Manifesto. London: 1970. Deedes, William. Race Without Rancour. London: Conser­ vative Political Centre, 1968. The European Commission on Human Rights and the 'Ken­ yan Asians.'' Briefing Paper no. 2/73. London: Runnymede Trust, 1973. Foot, Paul. Workers Against Racism. International Social­ ists Pamphlet. London: n.d. Glennerster, Howard, and Hatch, Stephen, eds. Positive Dis­ crimination and Inequality. Fabian Research Series 314. London: Fabian Society, 1974. Liberal Party. Election Manifesto. London: 1966. Runnymede Trust. Industrial Supplement no. 36 (September 1973). . Industrial Supplement no. 37 (October 1973). Smith, Christine L. The Resettlement of the Ugandan As­ ians in the United Kingdom. Briefing Paper no. 3/73. London: RunnymedeTrust (December 1973). Society of Graphical and Allied Trades. Stop Immigration and Racialism, n.p., n.d. NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES Daily Telegraph (London). Droit et Liberie (Paris). Economist (London). EveningStandard (London). Le Figaro (Paris). Guardian (London).

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Le Monde (Paris). Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris). Sociologie du Travail no. 3 (1972). Special number. Sondages—Revue Frangaise de I'Opinion Publique no. 4 (1973). Times (London). Sunday Times (London). UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS

Ashford, Douglas E. "French Pragmatism and British Ideal­ ism: Financial Aspects of Local Reorganization." Paper delivered at the Edinburgh IPSA Congress, 1976. Dennis, Jack. "Trends in Public Support for the American Political Party System." Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1974. . "Dimensions of Public Support for the Presidency." Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 1975. Downing, John. "Racism and Politics in Britain." Paper de­ livered to I.R.R./I.R.S.P. Conference (6-7 February 1971). Mimeographed. Jenkins, Roy. Speech Given at the Commonwealth Institute to a Meeting of Voluntary Liaison Committees, 23 May 1966. London: National Committee for Common­ wealth Immigrants. Mimeographed. Labour Party. National Executive Committee. "Labour's So­ cial Strategy." Discussion Papers. Mimeographed, n.d. . Research Department. "Notes on Immigration/ Race Relations." Information Paper 18 (May 1968). Mimeographed. Miller, Arthur H. "Change in Political Trust: Discontent with Authorities and Economic Policies, 1972-73." Pa­ per delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1974.

Index Abbott, Simon, 57n, 150n Abrams, Mark, 260n, 270n, 275 Africa, French-speaking countries and French immigration policy, 75 Agence National pour l'Emploi (ANPE), created, 204 Albertini, Rudolf von, 3 In, 34n, 35, 40n; quoted, 33 Algeria, effect of war on French immigration policy, 80-82; suspends emigration to France, 95 Algerian immigrants, 75; statistics, 23 Algerian immigration, France unilaterally limits, 86 Algerie frangaise, 80 Aliens Restriction Act, 1914, 45n Allen, Sheila, 182n Amalgamated Union of Electrical Workers, 224 Amin, Idi, and Uganda Asians crisis, 66 Anand, V. S., 289n, 293n Anderson, Charles W., lln, 12n Anderson, Malcolm, 28In anti-discrimination legislation, effects of events in America on British policy, 144; passed in France, 94; 1972 Act described, 154. See also discrimination, race relations policy anti-immigrant lobby, focus on race, 50; movements described, 280-307 Ashford, Douglas, 172n

Attlee, Clement, 33; his Government's immigration policy, 47 Aubervilliers tragedy, 91, 108 autogestion, 228 Axford, Barrie, 119, 120, 122n Axelrod, Robert, 11 Bagley, Christopher, 152n Bait Cygnet program, 179-180 Barbeau, M., 235n Barontini, Charles, 246n, 247n Barzun, Jacques, 42n Bastide, H„ 261n Beer, Samuel, 107n Bellamy, Joan, 242n Belloula, Tayeb, 128n Benedict, Ruth, 42n Berelson, Bernard, 193n Bevan, Aneurin, 297n Bideberry, Pierre, 73n, 76n, 177-78 bidonvilles, 78, 91-92 bilateralism, accord between France and Italy, 72; other accords, 73-75, 133. See also immigration policy Bindman, Geoffrey, 54n, 57n, 63n, 141n, 145, 146n Blalock, Hubert, 226n Blank, Stephen, 184n Blue Danube immigration scheme, 180 Bohning, W. R., 65n, 74n, 206n; quoted, 66 Bois, P., 157n Bonnefous, Edouard, 85n Borella, F., 250n Boskoff, Alvin W., 14n 349

INDEX Bosquet, Michel, 13n, 93n; quoted, 196 Boucher, Phillipe, 157n Boumediene, H., 87n Bourgeois, Jean, 69n Bourgeois-Pichat, Jean, 39n Bourne, Jenny, 6In Bouteflika, M., 87 Bouttier, J. M., 70n Boyle, Sir Edward, 105n braindrain, 313 Brier, Alan, 119, 122n British Commonwealth, 43; idea of, 34, 48; race, 34n; reduced influence, 55 British Nationality Act of 1948, 37, 46. See also citizenship, immigration policy Brittan, Samuel, 8n; quoted, 7 Brown, Aubrey, 183 Brown, George, quoted, 183 buffer institutions, 121n; defined, 39. See also community relations structures, race relations policy Bunel, J., 205n, 208n, 212 Burney, Elizabeth, 165n Butler, David, 6In, 30In Butler, R. A., 50n; and Kenyan Asians crisis, 58n; quoted, 51

Carr, Robert, and Ugandan Asian crisis, 66; quoted, 67 Castells, Manuel, 4n, 92n, 31 In Castles, Stephen, 21n, 27-28, 156n, 170, 171n, 187n, 190n, 222n, 223n, 229n, 270n, 323n, 326; quoted, 192, 194 Castro, Roland, 92n Celik, H., 238n Center Democrats, immigration attitudes of members, 276 Cetrafa, 79n Chaban-Delmas, Jacques, and Aubervilliers tragedy, 91; quoted, 92 Chamberlain, Joseph, 297n Charbit, Yves, 26In Charras, Marie-Ange, 79n Charte Revendicative, 233 Christoph, James, 107n, 11 In Churchill, Winston, 296, 297n citizenship, and consensus on race, 122-23; effect on immigration policy, 313. See also British Nationality Act of 1948, immigration policy clandestine immigration, 73, 93 class analysis, of immigration, 256-58. See also Gorz, Andre; Marxism; socialism class consciousness, and racial prejudice, 306n Calame, Paulette, 79n, 89n, 21 On Calame, Pierre, 79n, 89n, 210n Claudius-Petit, Eugene, 82n Callaghan, James, 126; becomes Clavel, Maurice, 92 code de la famille, described, 69n Home Secretary, 58; views on immigrant segregation, 151; Cohen, Brian, 151-52 Cohen, Stephen, 203 n quoted, 103, 138 Collard, David, 198n Calvez, Corentin, 89-90, 202, colonialism, and citizenship 209; reports to Social and rights, 36-39; and domestic Economic Council, 87; quoted, treatment of immigrants, 88 36, 39-42; direct and indirect Campaign Against Racial Disrule compared, 34-36; effect crimination (CARD), 56, 146 350

INDEX of direct rule on French race policy, 40-41; effect of indi­ rect rule on British race policy, 39; effect on immi­ gration, 30; effect on immi­ gration policy, 31-42; France and Britain compared, 3136; and entry rights, 36, 38-39 Colonial Office, 48 colons, 82. See also Algeria, pieds noirs Colour and Citizenship, 187, 215, 270-71, 275. See also Institute of Race Relations, Rose, E.J.B. Commissariat General du Plan, and labor supply, 177-78; and manpower planning, 71-73; and reserve army, 95; critique of laissez-faire policy, 199204; Third Plan, 116-17, 201; Fifth Plan, 201; Sixth Plan, and conflict between sending and receiving countries, 209; and effect of immigration on modernization, 203; assess­ ment of immigration impact on wage levels, 190 Common Program of the Left, 244; and immigration, 96, 248-49; quoted, 245 Commonwealth immigrants, defined, 16; statistics, 21 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, 50n; introduced, 49; enacted, 52; renewed, 53; effect on immigration, 23-25 Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, effect on immigration politics, 23, 58-59; introduced, 58; grandfather clause, 59 Commonwealth Relations Office, 48

Communist Party of Great Britain, position on immigra­ tion controls, 242 Community Development Proj­ ects, and enrichment versus integrative social policies, 167-68 community relations, as an ideology, 148n Community Relations Commis­ sion, 39; created, 57; described, 147 Community Relations Officer, 147 community relations structures, 122. See also buffer institu­ tions, race relations policy Compensatory programs, and immigrants, 166-68. See also reverse discrimination, universalism conciliation committees, 147 Confederation Frangaise Democratique du Travail (CFDT), 93; immigration policy, 227-38 Confederation Franfaise des TravailleursChretiens (CFTC), 228 Confederation General du Tra­ vail (CGT), 93, 306; critique of government immigration policy, 229-38; immigration position, 227-38; National Conference on Algerian Mi­ grants, 90; population policy, 72 Confederation General du Tra­ vail-Force Ouvrier (CGT-FO), 228

Confederation of British In­ dustry (CBI), views on im­ migration, 184, 225

INDEX Conseil National du Patronat Franfais (CNPF), 208, 211; changing perspective on im­ migration, 199-212; Confer­ ence at Lille, 210-12; head­ quarters raided, 92; and ONI, 201-202; and structural neces­ sity of foreign labor, 205 consensus, see race relations Conservative Party, first to in­ stitute controls, 44; racial at­ titudes of members, 276; role of Back Bench in immigration politics consociational democracy, and British response to race poli­ tics, 113 contradictions, between immi­ gration and liberal principles, 122-23 crisis, of legitimacy, 7; of ra­ tionality, 8; of Western socie­ ties, 5 Croizat, Ambroise, 228; quoted, 72n Crosland, Anthony, as proimmigration advocate, 136 Crozier, Michel, 6n Cullingworth, J. B., 168n Cullingworth Committee, 152 cultural pluralism, and British policy, 150-52; in Britain, 161; Labour Party, 57 Daniel, W. W., 143n, 226n Deakin, Nicholas, 37, 46, 48n, 59n, 61n, 104-105, 106n, 15052; quoted, 36, 102, 166, 124-25 Debre, Michel, and French population policy, 69-70 Debre Law, 118 decolonization, and British immigration policy, 41, 48.

See also Algerian War, colonialism Deferre, Gaston, 98, 248-49 Delerme, Roger, 76n demand overload, 6 Dennis, lack, 8n dependents, admitted to Britain, 25 Devaud, Marcelle, 82n Dienisch, M., 88 Dijoud, Paul, 97-98 Directorate of Population and Migration, created, 83 dirigisme, and French race relations strategy, 157 discrimination, FRANCE: and equality before the law, 156; evidence, 154-55; and individual prejudice, 160; legislation against, 153-62. See also threshold of tolerance GREAT BRITAIN: and the role of law, 142; problems of individual prejudice, 145-46, 148; attitude of Govern­ ment, 48; community rela­ tions approach, 146-49; institutional forms, 149-50; legislation against, 54, 14150; problems of evidence, 143-44; the voluntaristic approach, 146. See also anti-discrimination legisla­ tion, Race Relations Acts (1965, 1968, 1976), race relations policy, racism dispersal, and busing, 151; and housing policy, 152; and schools, 151; objects of, 151 Disraeli, Benjamin, 291 Djebbour, Ahmed, 81; quoted, 80 Donnelly, Desmond, 297n Doublet, Jacques, 72n

INDEX Downing, John, quoted, 148n Dummett, Michael, 126 Dumont, J.-P., quoted, 205 Duprat, Francois, 28In East African Asians, and race politics in Britain, 106-107. See also Ugandan Asians crisis, Kenyan Asians crisis Easton, Stewart C., 34n Economic Survey of 1947, 181-82 Economist, and the industrial reserve army, 193; immigra­ tion views, 136; pro-immigration stance, 184-86; quoted, 55 Edelman, Murray, 101η, 125n Edmond-Smith, Joyce, 93n, 94n, 154n, 157n Education Priority Areas Pro­ gram, 165 embourgeoisement, 218 English Rights Group, 106 European Commission on Hu­ man Rights, and East Africa Asians, 59n European Economic Community (EEC), and French policy, 74; and Immigration Act 1971, 65; and British refer­ endum, 324 European Voluntary Workers, 47, 179-82. See also immigration policy Events of May, 89; and French immigration policy, 85, 290 Evian Agreements, 82 Fawcett, J.E.S., 37n Feather, Vic, 224n; quoted, 226, 227 Federation of British Industries (FBI), views on immigration, 184

Ferry, Jules, 32n Fiddick, Peter, 60n, 286n, 287n, 294n fiscal crisis, defined, 7 FLN, 41, 80-81 Foley, Maurice, 53, 54n Fonds d'Action Social (FAS), 89, 197; established, 79; accomplishments, 170; expan­ sion, 83; financing, 171; im­ migrant representation, 170; structure, 170 Fontanet, Joseph, 209n Fontanet circulaire, 93, 201; "humanized," 94 Foot, Paul, 28η, 45n, 47n, 49n, 50n, 53n, 61n, 103-104, 239n, 242-43, 285n, 289n, 293n, 295-96, 297n Foreign Labor Committee, created, 180 France, characteristics relevant to comparative analysis, 1518; sources of immigration, 16 Francization, 160 Franco-Algerian Accord, signed, 83. See also bilateralism, immigration policy Frey, Roger, 81 Gaitskell, Hugh, 52, 239; oppo­ sition to Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, 50 Galvaire, Jean-Frangois, 282 Gani, Leon, 229n, 230n, 23 In, 232n, 235n, 236n, 238n Garrard, John Α., 28n, 45n, 213n, 222n gauchistes, 92, 237, 282 Gaulle, Charles de, 85, 300-301, 313; and French population policy, 69-70 Genet, Jean, 92 Germany (Federal Republic),

INDEX Germany (cont.) immigration policy as model, 323, 325-27 Girard, Alain, 260n, 261n, 262n, 263n, 267, 268, 273, 274, 276n, 280 Girardet, Raoul, 32n Giscard d'Estaing, Valery, 104, 160, 208n; campaign for President, 96; quoted, 98 Glass, Ruth, 270 Glennerster, Howard, 166n Gordon Walker, Patrick, 53; and Smethwick campaign, 103-104 Gorse, M., 94-95, 208n Gorz, Andre, 31 In, 328; and the "historic price" of labor, 25253; analysis of immigration, 251-55; immigration and the capitalist system, 251-53; revolutionary strategy and immigration, 254-55 Gough, Ian, 7n Grandval, N., quoted, 83 Granotier, Bernard, 75n, 79n, 87η, 109n, 154n, 238n, 31 In; quoted, 236 Grant, Larry, 62n Great Britain, characteristics relevant to comparative analysis, 15-18 Gregoire, Menie, quoted, 70 Griffiths, Peter, and campaign at Smethwick, 103 Gross, Bertram, quoted, 8 Guillaumin, Collette, 42n Habermas, Jurgen, 5, 8-9, 12223; and legitimation problems of advanced capitalism, 119-23 Hagmann, Η. M., 192n, 206, 323n Hall, Roger, 289n, 297n Hartmann, Paul, 106n

Hatch, Stephen, 166n Heath, Edward, 280, 285-86, 288, 291, 294n, 297, 300n, 301n, 304; and Conservative immigration policy, 60-68; and Ugandan Asians crisis, 66; removes Powell from Shadow Cabinet, 106-107; quoted, 105 Heclo, Hugh, 314n; quoted, 131 Heineman, Benjamin W., Jr., 54n Hermantin, Fred, 94n, 153 Hervo, Monique, 79 Heuclin, Albert, 281 Hill, M. J., 148n, 150n Hindell, Keith, 54n Hogg, Quintin (Lord Hailsham), 62, 296 Holman, Robert, 168 Home, Sir Alec Douglas, 29In, 292n, 296; and Smethwick campaign, 103 Hughes, H. D., 224n, 225n Humphry, Derek, 58n, 59n, 67n, 152n, 284n hunger strikes, 92; response of unions, 237 Huntington, Samuel P., quoted, 6, 8

Husband, Charles, 106n immigrant-colonial amalgam, defined, 30. See also colonial­ ism, decolonization immigrant labf>r,_ and the social services, 197-98; costs of, 4; dual quality of, 10; economic activity of, 27-29; exploitation of, 4; housing, 79; qualifica­ tion levels of, 25-27; secondclass production factors, 243-44; social conditions, 78; structural requirement of

INDEX advanced capitalism, 3-5; welfare policy toward, 80 immigration, and advanced capitalism, 3-5; and class analysis, 256-58; colonial background, 28-42; costs, 197212; crisis of capitalist democracies, 9-10; debate over "numbers," 126; differ­ ences between French and British experience, 17; eco­ nomic benefits of, 174-96; economic growth, 174-76; emergence as issue in Britain, 45-52; ethnic composition of, 22; French Presidential elec­ tion of 1974, 95; from India, 23-26; from Pakistan, 23-26; from West Indies, 23-26; illegal, 22; nonwhite, 46; size and pattern of, 20-29; statistics discussed, 20; struc­ tural dependence on, 139, 204206 Immigration Act 1971, intro­ duced, 61; described, 62-66; and economic conditions, 137; and grandfather clause, 63, 67; and manpower policy, 64; and rules, 63; effect on immi­ gration, 26 Immigration Appeals Act 1969, described, 59n Immigration Control Associa­ tions, 283 immigration policy, demographic explanation, 312-13; economic aspects, 135-41; economic explanation, 311-12; effect of colonialism, 312-14; explana­ tions, 311-17; external con­ straints, 311; France and Britain compared, 132-41, 308-309; French and British

policy converges, 132; instru­ ments, 133-41; problemdefinitions, 132-33; proximate determinants, 311; uneven development, 206-207 Ieanneney, M., quoted, 84, 196 Jenkins, Roy, becomes Chancel­ lor of Exchequer, 58; criticizes Maudling, 64n; defines British assimilation policy, 137-38; dominates Labour policy, 1965-1968, 56-58; responds to PEP Report, 147 Jeune Nation, 281 John, Gus, 284n Joint Communique on Immigra­ tion, quoted, 232. See also Confederation General du Travail, Confederation Frangaise Democratique du Travail Jones, Aubrey, 6n Jones, K., 190n, 192n, 198 Katznelson, Ira, 23-24, 30, 48n, 52n, 101, 121n, 239n; quoted, 39, 100, 102, 148n Kenyan Asians crisis, and Immigration Act 1968, 58 Khorsi, Sadek, 82n Kindleberger, Charles, 4n, 17478, 189n; quoted, 206 King, Anthony, 6n Kosack, Godula, 21n, 27-28, 156η, 170η, 171n, 187n, 190n, 222η, 223n, 229n, 270n, 323n, 326n; quoted, 192, 194 Kramer, Jane, 82n labor shortage, in post-war Britain, 47 Labour Party, citizenship law and immigration, 240-41; "humanitarian-race relations" approach, 256-78; immigra-

INDEX Labour Party (cont.) tion policy, 238-41; immigra­ tion policy converges with Tories, 52; opposes Common­ wealth Immigrants Bill 1962, 51; Opposition Green Paper on Immigration, 240-41; position on universal social services, 167; racial attitudes of members, 276; racial cri­ teria for immigration, 240; recent changes in race rela­ tions policy, 149-50; sources of opposition to controls, 53; White Paper, 1948, 3334; White Paper on Immigra­ tion, 1965, 52, 54; Working Party Report, 44n, 144 Local Government Grants (Social Needs) Act of 1969, 165-66 laissez-faire policy, criticized, 87. See also immigration policy, France Lambert, John R., 15 In Lamy, Marie-Lawrence, 26In Lanier, M., quoted, 160-61 Lanier, P., quoted, 209 Lannes, Xavier, 69n, 72n, 194-95 Lauriol, Marc, 82n Lawrence, Daniel, 27On; quoted, 127 Lee, Brian, 289n Le Pen, Jean-Marie, runs for President, 282-83 Lester, Anthony, 54n, 57n, 141n, 145n, 146n Levi-Strauss, C., 158 Liberal Party, position on immi­ gration, 183-84; racial atti­ tudes of members, 276 Ligue Communiste, 282 Lijphart, Arend, 12n, 15n, 113 Lindberg, Leon, 10η, 15n Lipset, Seymour Martin, 5n

Little England, 55, 215, 284 Leuthy, Herbert, 33n Lugard, Lord, 35; quoted, 35n Macleod, Ian, and Kenyan Asians crisis, 58n MacMillan, Harold, 283, 292n, 296; "Winds of Change" address, 48 MacRae, Duncan, 113n manpower policy, contradictions with selective immigration, 136-40. See also immigration policy Manville, Marcel, 74n Marcellin, Raymond, 109, 282 MarceIlin circulaire, 93 Marchais, Georges, 247; and PCF policy toward immi­ grants, 90; quoted, 246 Marchandeau law, 94, 153-54 Marin, G., 157n Marshall, D. Bruce, quoted, 32, 33n Marshall, Τ. H., 36n, 38 Marx, Karl, 13n, 192; and the industrial reserve army, 175; quoted, 175 Marxism, absence in Britain, 316; and immigration, 246; in France, 306; interpretations of of contradictions of capital­ ism, 7. See also class; Gorz, Andre; Marx, Karl; socialism Mason, Phillip, quoted, 145-46n Massenet, Michel, 89n, 189-90, 203, 207n; and immigration as a form of development aid, 209; and the threshold of tolerance, 158-59; quoted, 169 Maudling, Reginald, 62, 291; and Immigration Act 1971, 64n; and membership in EEC, 65

INDEX Meacher, Michael, 166n Meadows, Donella H., 7n Meadows, Dennis, 7n merchants of sleep, 156 Mesarovic, Mihajlo, 7n Messmer, Pierre, quoted, 20, 109, 156 Meteye, J.-L., 157n Meth, Monty, 224n, 225n Meynaud, Jean, quoted, 114n Miller, Arthur H., 8n Minces, Juliette, 70n, 79n, 84n, 94n, 196n, 199, 201-202 Ministry of Population, created, 70 Mishan, E. J., 175, 191 Mitterand, Francois, 245, 248; quoted, 96 Monday Club, 283 Moore, Robert, 128n Mosley, Oswald, 297n Mountbatten Mission, 133-34; fails, 54 Movement Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and for Peace (MRAP), 154 Mullard, Chris, 148n Nairn, Tom, 289n, 300n; quoted, 293-94 National Committee for Com­ monwealth Immigrants, 39, 54, 57, 102 National Council of Manpower, 228 National Front, 282 nationalism, in Britain, 48 nationality law, and Immigration Act 1971, 62. See also British Nationality Act of 1948, citizenship National Union of Iournalists, 226 Needleman, L., 175n

neocolonialism» and immigra­ tion, 219. See also colonial­ ism, decolonization, imperi­ alism neo-fascists (in Britain), 48 Nikolinakos, Marios, 205 nonwhite immigration, statistics, 21, 68

North Sea immigration program,

180 O'Brian, Justin, 67n O'Connor, James, quoted, 7 OECD, and British manpower policy, 178-79; and French manpower policy, 202-204 Office National d'lmmigration, 21, 73, 77, 86, 89, 134, 19697, 199, 320; Conseil d'Administration, 228; described, 70-71 ONAMO, created, 82 ordonnance of November 2, 1945, sets basic framework for postwar French immigra­ tion policy, 70-71 Organski, A.F.K., 69n Organski, Katharine, 69n Parion, M., 190 Parti Communist Fran?ais, 228, 250, 306; and demand for a Democratic and Social Statute for Immigrants, 247-48; and immigration, 90; immigration policy, 244-58; immigrationrelated attitudes of members, 276-77; population policy, 72 Parti Socialiste, 250; immigra­ tion policy, 244-58; immigra­ tion-related attitudes of mem­ bers, 276 patriality, defined, 62n, 63. See also Commonwealth Immi-

INDEX patriality (com.) grants Act 1968, Immigration Act 1971 Patterson, Sheila, 44n, 105n, 283n Peach, Ceri, 45n Pestel, Edward, 7n Petain, Marshal, 153 Peyrefitte, Alain, quoted, 82-83 pieds noirs, 41. See also Algeria, colons Pierce, Gareth, 62n Pinot, Franfoise, 250n Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael, 6In Planning Commission, see Commissariat General du Plan Plender, Richard, 63n Plowden Report, impact on im­ migrant welfare programs, 166

policy makers, importance of perceptions, 11; perceptions and objective conditions, 136; perceptions and public policy, 135; public statements as data, 13 policy-making process, and French immigration policy, 117-18 Polish War Veterans program, 179 Political and Economic Planning (PEP), Report on Racial Discrimination, 143-44, 155, 321 political culture, defined, 1ΙΟ­ Ι In; of French and British elites, 111-15 political parties, and the con­ sensus on race in Britain, 112-13 political variables, effect on immigration policy, 314-17

Pompidou, Georges, 93, 282; dies, 95; quoted, 84, 109 population policy, defeated in France, 72. See also Gaulle, Charles de; Debre, Michel positive discrimination, 166-68. See also compensatory pro­ grams Postel-Vinay, M., becomes Secre­ tary of State for Immigra­ tion, 96; resigns, 97 Pouillet, Μ. T., 70n Powell, Enoch, 126, 259, 280 CAREER; background, 28991; early political career, 291-92; Profumo affair, 292n; resignations from office slow advance, 292; resigns Parliamentary seat from Wolverhampton, 301; regains seat as Ulster Un­ ionist, 302; as outsider, 296-97; and the Conserva­ tive Party, 296-97; removed from Shadow Cabinet, 60; adopts Gaullist strategy, 300-302; career assessed, 302-304 IMMIGRATION POLITICS:

284-305; early views on immigration, 294-96; con­ stituency pressures, 295; ac­ tivities in 1968, 59-61; shat­ ters post-1966 political consensus, 106-107; Bir­ mingham address, 285-88; terms of political discourse, 107; "rivers of blood," 60; constituent "tales," 287; effect of speech on popu­ larity, 268-89; address at Eastbourne, 288-89; theme of exclusion, 299-300;

INDEX charges of disloyalty in the Home Office, 299; Kenyan Asians crisis, 58n; role of myths, 290-94; re­ patriation, 286, 300, 303304; proposes Ministry of Repatriation, 60; the ques­ tion of numbers, 138-39, 288-89; and immigrant birth rates, 60; and "Powellism," 289 OTHER: British Common­ wealth, 300; British Na­ tionality Act of 1948, 300; citizenship law, 300; Com­ mon Market, 298, 300; Mar­ ket referendum, 301, 305; Monday Club, 284; national identity, 298-300; national­ ism, 290-91; political views, 292-94; populist politics, 294-302 Powellism, 289, 324, 328-29 Power, Jonathan, 194n Pringe, Robert, 76n; and Ger­ man prisoners of war, 70 Prost, Antoine, 199n public opinion, "competition" theory of anti-immigrant prejudice, 279-80; on immi­ gration, 259-80; on immigra­ tion controls, 261-69; permis­ sive factor in France, 265-66; race prejudice in Britain, 26971; utility of immigration, 266-68, 279 public policy analysis, methods of, 10 Putnam, Robert, 11, IlOn race, and class, 218; and class conflict in Britain, 101-102; consensus on race in Britain,

100-108; consensus on race based on elitist attitudes, 107; consensus on race in France, 109; depoliticization of, 110, 305; depoliticization of race in France, 115; rationale and consequence of depoliticiza­ tion of race, 124-29; and French immigration policy, 76; as political issue, 99-110; as issue in France, 108-110; and Smethwick campaign, 103-105; and the 1966 General Election, 104-105; and tech­ nocratic decision making in France, 115-17 Race Relations Act 1965, 54, 146, 320-21 Race Relations Act 1968, 164, 320-21; TUC opposition, 225; passed, 56; described, 146-48 Race Relations Act 1976, 321n Race Relations Board, 102, 144; created, 54; described, 14647; reconstituted, 57; Annual Report, quoted, 145 race relations policy, goals, 148; effectiveness, 148-49; recent changes, 149-50; France and Britain compared, 309. See also anti-discrimination legislation, community rela­ tions, discrimination racial conflict and violence, 91, 309-310; in Marseilles, 108109; riots in London and Not­ tingham, 49, 100 racial selection, politically moti­ vated, 312. See also immigra­ tion policy racism, and immigration policy, 42; and the working class, 220;

INDEX racism (cont.) as ideology, 42; in Britain, 149 Radical Party, immigration at­ titudes of members, 276 Radin, Beryl, 226n reconciliation model of immi­ grant-working class relation­ ship, 328-29 regularization, defined, 77; statistics, 78 repatriation, 277; public atti­ tudes toward, 262 reverse discrimination, 80, 320; and British welfare policy, 163; and the TUC, 224; pref­ erential treatment and the law, 142 revolutionaries, proper stance on immigration, 220; strategy toward immigrant workers, 250-55 revolutionary vanguard model of immigrant-working class relationship, 327-28 Ridley, A. F., 289n, 293n Rose, Arnold, 169n Rose, E.J.B., 21η, 44n, 45n, 52n, 53η, 54η, 55n, 150n, 184n, 187n, 215, 226n, 239n, 260n, 271, 275n, 276n Rose, Hannan, 64n, 65n Roth, Andrew, 289n, 292, 300n, 301n Saglio, J., 205n, 212 Sandys, Duncan, 44n; and Kenyan Asians crisis, 58n Sartre, Jean-Paul, 92 Sauvy, Alfred, and French popu­ lation policy, 69 Schmidt, Gregory, 201n Schumann, Maurice, 88, 90, 206207; quoted, 89

Scobie, Edward, 49n Scott, Duncan, 283n second generation immigrant, 57 Secretary of State for Immigra­ tion, appointed, 96 Select Committee on Race Rela­ tions and Immigration, 167, 223 Serres, Justiniac de, 169n Servier, J., 158 Sharpies, Robert, quoted, 64 Shon, Donald A., 319; quoted, 14 Shonfield, Andrew, 6n, 203n Sidos, Pierre, 281 Simons, John, 2In, 178n, 313n Singer, J. David, 318 Sivanandan, A., 243-44 Smethwick (first racially oriented political campaign in Britain), 53, 103-104 Smith, A. D., 190n, 191, 192n, 198 Smith, Christine L., 67n Smithies, Bill, 60n, 286n, 287n, 294n Snyder, Louis L., 42n Social Action Fund, see Fonds d'Action Social Social and Economic Council, 87 social deprivation, and British welfare policy, 163 socialism, and controls on immi­ gration, 221; and immigra­ tion policy, 217-21, 242-55; linking immigration policy to political strategy, 221; and the particularities of the im­ migrant situation, 220. See also class analysis; Gorz, An­ dre; Marxism social learning, 317-22; defined, 14, 319

INDEX Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, 243n Society of Labour Lawyers, 146 Sonacotrol, 79n Soskice, Sir Frank, quoted, 53 Southall Residents' Association, 5On Stacey, Tom, 289n statistics, not collected by race in Britain, 21 Steel, David, 58n Stephen, David, 65n; quoted, 63 Stewart, Michael, 6n Stoetzel, J., 261n Street, Harry, 144-45 Studlar, Donley T., 260n, 26162, 289n subproletariat, 219 Suleiman, Ezra N., 114n Survey of Race Relations, 21, 260n, 268 Switzerland, immigration ex­ perience, xi, 321-25 Tannahill, J. Α., 47n, 179, 182 Thorneycroft, Peter, 105n, 165, 292n Thornton, A. P., quoted, 31 threshold of tolerance, 200, 33132; and French race relations policy, 157-61; evidence, 278. See also Massenet, Michel; race relations policy Tixier-Vignancourt, Jean-Louis, 283n; Presidential campaign, 281

Trades Union Congress (TUC), 236, 256; and immigration policy, 221-27; influence on Labour Government's immi­ gration policy, 223 Transport and General Work­ ers Union (TGWU), 224 Treaty of Rome, 74, 118

Tripier, M., 233n, 236n Trotskyists, and the immigrant subproletariat, 250; excoriated, 247 iiberfremdung, 323 U.D.R., immigration attitudes of members, 276 Ugandan Asians crisis, 66-67; and "red areas," 151-52n Ugandan Asians Resettlement Board, 66-67, 151-52n U.K. nationals, defined, 66. See also citizenship, Immigration Act 1971, patriality universalism, and immigrant services, 163-68. See also com­ pensatory programs, reverse discrimination UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 181 Urban Programme, 167-68, 171; and "enrichment" strategy, 152; and immigrants, 165-68 Utley, Τ. E., 285n, 286n, 289n, 290n, 29In, 292n, 294n, 297n Verbunt, Gilles, 9 In Vickers, Sir Geoffrey, 12n Vieuguet, Andre, 244n voluntary liaison committees, 54 voucher system, and Common­ wealth Immigrants Act 1962, 52; effect on entries, 24; po­ litical purposes, 55. See also manpower policy Wallerstein, Immanuel, 3 In Ward, Ann, quoted, 243 Ward, Antony, 175n Ward, Michael, 58n, 59n, 67n, 152n, 284n Watanuki, Joji, 6n Wedgewood-Benn, Anthony, quoted, 139

INDEX welfare policy, and education, 171; affected by immigration policy, 162; and housing, 165; and immigrants, 162-72; and "impacted" areas, 165-68; rationale, 169 West Indian Federation, 48 Westward Ho immigration scheme, 179-82 White Papers, of 1947, 181; on Immigration, 1965, 55-56, 100, 104, 118; on Racial Discrimination, 1975, 149-50 Wilson, Harold, 53; criticized, 55; "parliamentary leper" speech, 103-104; quoted, 168

Windlesham, Lord, 64n; quoted, 147n "Winds of Change" speech, 28384. See also colonialism; MacMillan, Harold Wood, Iohn, 61n, 289n working class, dilemmas posed by immigration, 216-21; fears of immigration, 126-27 Wright, Peter, 187n Young, George K., 284 Zahan, Dominique, 158 Zarka, Claude, 82n

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Freeman, Gary P Immigrant labor and racial conflict in industrial societies. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Alien labor—France. 2. Alien labor—Great Britain. 3. France—Race relations. 4. Great Britain—Race re­ lations. 5. France—Emigration and immigration. 6. Great Britain—Emigration and immigration. I. Title. HD8438.A2F73 331.6'2'0941 78-70292 ISBN 0-691-07603-0